Penny Dreadfuls, 1900 · page 41 of 142
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Salaman and Absal of Jami — page 41: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains running prose poetry from what appears to be a Victorian-era translation or adaptation of *The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám*. The numbered stanzas (LVI-LIX) are presented in quatrain form. The speaker reflects on his lack of philosophical depth except regarding wine, defends his mathematical calendar reforms, describes an angelic figure offering him grapes at a tavern door, and concludes by praising grapes as a logical and alchemical solution capable of transmuting life's base elements into gold. The page number "15" appears at top right.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
OMAR KHAYYAM. 15 ig = LVI, For “Is” and ‘‘Is-nor” though with Rule and Line, And “ Up-anp-pown” by Logic I define, Of all that one should care to fathom, I Was never deep in anything but— Wine, LVII. Ah, but my Computations, People say, Reduced the Year to better reckoning P—Nay, "Twas only striking from the Calendar Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday, LVIII, And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder ; and He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape! LIX. The Grape that can with Logic absolute The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute : The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute: COMmMICoOoOokS. Conn