Spiritual Wine

A Moment's Halt — a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste —
     And Lo! — the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from — Oh, make haste!
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (The Five Authorized Versions), Edward FitzGerald (tr.), from Fifth Version, 1889, #48, p. 139.

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
     The Sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute:
— Ibid., #59, p. 142.
 
Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain — This life flies;
     One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
— Ibid., #63. p. 144.
 
                                69
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
     Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.  
                                70
The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
     And He that toss'd you down into the Field,
He knows about it all — He knows HE knows!  
                               71
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
     Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.  
                              72
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
     Lift not your hands to It for help — for It
As impotently moves as you or I.  
                             73
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
     And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.  
                            74
Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
Tomorrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
     Drink! for you know not whence you come, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
— Ibid., #69-74, pp. 146-147.
 
And this I know: whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath — consume me quite,
     One Flash of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.
— Ibid., #77, p. 148.
 
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour — well,
     I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
— Ibid., #95, p. 155.