"'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays." Omar Khayyám (11-12th century), Persian astronomer, poet. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, st. 49, trans. by Edward FitzGerald, first edition (1859). |
"And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for helpfor It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I." Omar Khayyám (11-12th century), Persian astronomer, poet. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, st. 52, trans. by Edward Fitzgerald (1859). |
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