Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and Salámán and Absál Together With A Life Of Edward Fitzgerald And An Essay On Persian Poetry By Ralph Waldo Emerson   By: Unknown (1048-1122)

"The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again: How oft hereafter rising shall she look Through this same Garden after me in vain!" ]

THE FITZGERALD CENTENARY EDITION

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

AND

Salámán and Absál

RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY EDWARD FITZGERALD

TOGETHER WITH A LIFE OF EDWARD FITZGERALD AND AN ESSAY ON PERSIAN POETRY BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

PEACOCK, MANSFIELD & CO., LTD. PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

MCMIX

BOYLE, SON & WATCHURST,

Printers, &c. Warwick Square, London, E.C.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

TO E. FITZGERALD iv

LIFE OF EDWARD FITZGERALD 1

PREFACE TO RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM 11

RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM 21

SALÁMÁN AND ABSÁL 43

PERSIAN POETRY, AN ESSAY BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON 101

TO E. FITZGERALD.

Old Fitz, who from your suburb grange Where once I tarried for a while, Glance at the wheeling Orb of change And greet it with a kindly smile; Whom yet I see, as there you sit Beneath your sheltering garden tree, And watch your doves about you flit And plant on shoulder, hand and knee, Or on your head their rosy feet, As if they knew your diet spares Whatever moved in that full sheet Let down to Peter at his prayers;

But none can say That Lenten fare makes Lenten thought, Who reads your golden Eastern lay, Than which I know no version done In English more divinely well; A planet equal to the sun; Which cast it, that large infidel Your Omar: and your Omar drew Full handed plaudits from our best In modern letters....

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

LIFE OF EDWARD FITZGERALD.

Edward FitzGerald was born in the year 1809, at Bredfield House, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, being the third son of John Purcell, who, subsequently to his marriage with a Miss FitzGerald, assumed the name and arms proper to his wife's family.

St. Germain and Paris were in turn the home of his earlier years, but in 1821, he was sent to the Grammar School at Bury St. Edmunds. During his stay in that ancient foundation he was the fellow pupil of James Spedding and J. M. Kemble. From there he went in 1826 to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he made the acquaintance of W. M. Thackeray and others of only less note. His school and college friendships were destined to prove lasting, as were, also, all those he was yet to form.

One of FitzGerald's chief characteristics was what might almost be called a genius for friendship. He did not, indeed, wear his heart upon his sleeve, but ties once formed were never unloosed by any failure in charitable and tender affection on his part. Never, throughout a lengthy life, did irritability and erratic petulance (displayed 'tis true, at times by the translator of "that large infidel"), darken the eyes of those he honoured with his friendship to the simple and whole hearted genuineness of the man.

From Oxford, FitzGerald retired to the 'suburb grange' at Woodbridge, referred to by Tennyson. Here, narrowing his bodily wants to within the limits of a Pythagorean fare, he led a life of a truly simple type surrounded by books and roses, and, as ever, by a few firm friends. Annual visits to London in the months of Spring kept alive the alliances of earlier days, and secured for him yet other intimates, notably the Tennyson brothers.