Quatrain 32
Quatrain 32 of 75
“There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed—and then no more of THEE and ME.”
Reflection · Winter
There was a Door. Khayyam uses the past tense, as if reporting from the other side of something. There was a door, and I could not find the key, and I looked. There was a veil, and I could not see past it, and I tried. Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE — this line contains everything that makes human existence worth the confusion. The ME and THEE: the particular relationship, the specific conversation, the individual voice addressing another individual voice. And then: no more of THEE and ME.
In winter this verse is the purest expression of the Rubaiyat's central ache. Not the ache of unfulfilled desire — the ache of the specific. The ME and THEE that existed, that talked, that were real to each other, that will be no more.