11 Ordibehesht 1405
Quatrain 37 of 75
“Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!”
Reflection · Spring 1405
Spring is the season of tomorrow — the whole season is organized around the unborn tomorrow, the summer that is coming. Khayyam inserts this verse into spring to ask: but what about today, right now, the spring morning that is actually here? If to-day be sweet — and it is, it is the sweetest possible to-day, the spring morning with the blossom opening and the year beginning — why fret about what comes next?
What boots it to repeat how time is slipping — in spring this sounds almost funny. The time is slipping exuberantly. The spring slips faster than any other season, every gardener knows this. Fill the cup fast, if you are filling it in spring.