Quatrain 20
Quatrain 20 of 75
“Ah! my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears—
To-morrow?—Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.”
Reflection · Summer
Seven thousand years — the astronomer's sense of time pressing into the love poem, the vast duration of what came before making the present cup more precious, not less. In summer the year is at its fullest and the seven thousand years feel most distant. The cup is full, the beloved is here, today is cleared of its regrets and fears by the simple act of being fully in it.
To-morrow I may be myself with yesterday's seven thousand years: dissolved into the ancient matter of the world, no longer here as this particular self with this particular beloved. The thought is vertiginous and exact. The cup that clears today is the only cup Khayyam is interested in. In the long summer afternoon, this is everything: the beloved, the cup, the cleared day, the full attention. Tomorrow the seven thousand years will receive us. Today we are here.