Quatrain 15
Quatrain 15 of 75
“And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.”
Reflection · Autumn
The careful and the careless arrive at the same destination. This is Khayyam at his most radical: not arguing for pleasure over prudence, not arguing for prudence over pleasure. Arguing past both, to the fact underneath them. The destination is identical. The journey is yours to choose. In autumn, the harvest is being gathered — all the careful husbandry of spring and summer arriving at its result.
Khayyam's verse is not a reason to fling; it is a reason to be honest about why you husband. Do it for love of the craft, for the real pleasure of careful work — not because it exempts you from the general fact. The husbandman and the scatterer will both be received by the same ground. Both will become the same earth. The field you worked or scattered into will hold no trace of the difference, except in whatever joy you found in the working.