Penny Dreadfuls, 1900 · page 80 of 142
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Salaman and Absal of Jami — page 80: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a page of running prose poetry from what appears to be a Victorian literary work titled "Salámán and Absál" (visible at the top). The page contains two distinct poetic passages: the first narrates an Arab waking and discovering a signal (a pumpkin) tied to another's ankle, leading to an existential lament about identity; the second is a direct address to "Jámi" reflecting on a lifetime of stringing verses together "pearl after pearl" on a harp, with the speaker acknowledging that though life is spent, stories remain untold. The text employs elaborate metaphors comparing poetic composition to harp-playing worn by age and time.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
_ —— = _—_---——————, Round his own the pumpkin tied, And laid him down to sleep beside. By and by the Arab waking 3 Looks directly for his Stqnal— Sees ut on another's Ancle— Cries aloud, “ Oh Glood-for-nothing fascal to perplex me so! “That by you I am bewilder’d, ‘* Whether I be I or no! “Tf I—the Pumpkin why on Your? “Tf You—then Where am I, and Wuo ?” : 5A SALAMAN AND ABSAL. | >see ———__—_ AND yet, how long, O Jami, stringing Verse, Pearl after pearl, on that old Harp of thine? Year after year attuning some new Song, The breath of some old Story ?* Life is gone, And that last song is not the last; my Soul Is spent—and still a Story to be told ! And J, whose back is crookéd as the Harp I still keep tuning through the Night till Day! That harp untun’d by Time—the harper’s hand Shaking with Age—how shall the harper’s hand Repair its cunning, and the sweet old harp : 1“ Yiasuf and Zulaikha,’’ “ Laila and Majnin,”’ &c. iN a (C(O) MIGDoOo CS (CO) mn