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Photo by Keri Douglas (copyright protected)

From the personal book collection of Mrs. Artin K. Shalian, an old family friend, I pulled out Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald and Illustrated by Edmund Dulac. There is no date on the book – but it may have been published around 1909 or so.

I love these old books that offer a message as though there were just yesterday written.

XX
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.

XXVIII
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I
reap'd
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

LXXII
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the
Rose!
That Youth's sweet-secented Manuscript
should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches
sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who
knows!

By Keri Douglas, writer/photographers, Washington, D.C. (Please follow 9 Muses News copyright use policy.)