Quatrain 69
Quatrain 69 of 75
“Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!”
Reflection · Autumn
In autumn this verse is most fully itself. Alas, that spring should vanish with the rose — and it has, and the vanishing is visible everywhere. The rose is gone. The nightingale has flown. Youth's sweet-scented manuscript is in its later chapters, the ones that smell of turning leaves rather than opening blossoms.
Whence, and whither flown again, who knows — this question is autumn's specific heartbreak. Khayyam allows this alas to stand without resolution. Sometimes the alas is the point. Sometimes the loss is simply the loss.