Quatrain 22
Quatrain 22 of 75
“And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?”
Reflection · Summer
The question at the end is unanswerable and that is the point. We descend to make a couch — to become the soft earth that the next generation lies on — for whom? We will not know them. They will lie in the earth we become and have no sense of the particular people whose dissolution they are resting on. Summer dresses in new bloom — the season doesn't stop for the reckoning. It dresses in bloom, it makes merry in the room, and the merry-making is real and good.
Khayyam is not saying stop the merry-making because you will descend. He is saying make merry in full awareness of the descent, let both be true at once. For whom is the hardest question because the couch is made for someone who will not know you made it. And yet you will make it. This is generous in a way that does not require you to intend it.