25
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

26
Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

27
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

28
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour’d it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d –
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

Edward Fitzgerald, 1809-1883 – from his translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam


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One response

  1. Beautiful. Lovely verse and translation. Truly Sufi.

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#238 - Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico - Human Voices Wake Us

An episode from 8/17/26: Tonight, we look at the years of intense simplicity that the American artist Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) spent in New Mexico. Attached to the area from her first visit to Taos in 1929, over the next fifteen years she continued to travel and paint there. In 1949 she moved to New Mexico permanently and achieved the kind of bare-bones life, seclusion from the wider world, and level of intimacy with the natural world she had long sought. The books I read from are Laurie Lisle's biography, Portrait of an Artist, and Georgia O'Keeffe, a large book of reproductions and commentary by O'Keeffe herself.The paintings of hers that O'Keeffe mentions in the episode are: The Grey Hills (1942) (the painting called Grey Hills 2, which she describes as looking like miles of elephants, is not online); Black Place III (1944), Patio with Black Door (1955), Road Past the View I (1964), and Black Rock with Blue III (1970).The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. I also have a YouTube channel where I share poems and excerpts from these books, mostly as YouTube shorts.Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
  1. #238 - Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico
  2. #237 - Al Pacino remembers his childhood, and Eleanor Roosevelt finds herself
  3. #236 - At home with Bach
  4. #235 - London in 2011, London in the 1660s
  5. #234: The Intensity of Private Moments
  6. #233: Talking Baseball with Tom Hart
  7. #232: Ted Hughes in Alaska
  8. #231: The mythology of the moon
  9. #230 - The mythology of the bear, and Byron gets apocalyptic
  10. #229 : Mother Earth and myths of mining and agriculture

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