In FitzGerald's version the verses appear thus:—
31 lines✦
yself when young did eagerly frequentDoctor and Saint and heard great ArgumentAbout it and about: but evermoreCame out by the same Door as in I went. With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sowAnd 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." Similar examples may be found elsewhere, thus:— From the Beginning was written what shall beUnhaltingly the Pen writes, and is heedless of good and bad;On the First Day He appointed everything that must be,Our grief and our efforts are vain, develops into:— The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. The general tendency to amplification is shown again in the translationof the two lines:— Forsake not the book, the lover's lips and the green bank of the field,Ere that the earth enfold thee in its bosom. into the oft-quoted verses:— With me along some Strip of Herbage strownThat just divides the desert from the sown,Where the name of Slave and Sultán scarce is known,And pity Sultán Máhmúd on his Throne. Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and ThouBeside me singing in the Wilderness—And Wilderness is Paradise enow!
✦