Penny Dreadfuls, 1900 · page 30 of 142
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Salaman and Absal of Jami — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Description This is a text page from what appears to be a Victorian edition of *The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam*, presenting quatrains (numbered XII through XV) in English verse. The page contains philosophical poetry about worldly pleasures, materialism, and mortality—featuring famous lines about wine, bread, and a beloved in the wilderness, alongside meditations on wealth, the rose as metaphor, and the futility of hoarding grain. The text is formatted with decorative floral borders and Roman numeral stanza divisions, characteristic of Victorian book design.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SP a: RUBAIYAT OF XII, A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness— Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow ! XITT, Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come ; Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum ! A Vic Look to the blowing Rose about us—“ Lo, ‘‘ Laughing,” she says, “‘ into the world I blow, “At once the silken tassel of my Purse “Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.” XV. And those who husbanded the Golden grain, And those who flung it to the winds lke Rain, Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d As, buried once, Men want dug up again. 3 OOO Sal CO) Comic