With me along some Strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave… — Omar Khayyám

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire.

A book, a woman, and a flask of wine:

The three make heaven for me; it may be thine

Is some sour place of singing cold and bare —

But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.

Would but some wing'ed Angel ere too late

Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,

And make the stern Recorder otherwise

Enregister, or quite obliterate!