Quatrain 55
Quatrain 55 of 75
“The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about
If clings my Being—let the Sufi flout;
Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.”
Reflection · Summer
The Vine had struck a Fibre — this is a gardener's image. The vine sends out its tendrils and finds something to grip, and once the fibre has made contact, the clinging begins. The Sufi flouts his attachment to wine — the mystic tradition that Khayyam lived alongside and argued with. Let him flout. Khayyam's base metal — the very impurity of his nature, his attachment to the literal wine and the literal present moment — is exactly the material from which the key can be filed.
That shall unlock the Door he howls without — the Sufi, for all his spiritual elevation, is howling outside a door he cannot open. In summer this verse is triumph.