Edward Fitzgerald quotes:

A book of verses underneath the bough, A jug of wine, a loaf of bread-and thou.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Tis all a Checkerboard of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and stays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.

I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

I came like Water, and like Wind I go.

And much as Wine has played the Infidel, And robbed me of my Robe of Honor Well, I often wonder what the Vintners buy One half so precious as the stuff they sell.

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, But Here or There as strikes the Player goes.

If you can prove to me that one miracle took place, I will believe he is a just God who damned us all because a woman ate an apple.

The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

Whether we wake or we sleep, Whether we carol or weep, The Sun with his Planets in chime, Marketh the going of Time.

Strange, is it not? That of the myriads who Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road Which to discover we must travel too.

I am all for the short and merry life.