lating the translations on which the following poem is based. In making my version I have, of course, employed the form of quatrain naturalised by FitzGerald—naturalised, it must be remembered, and not invented; the unrhymed third line being a feature of the original rubá'iy, and the melody of the whole quatrain being accounted by those able to judge a beautiful echo of the old Persian music. There appears to be this difference, however, that the rhymes in the Persian are tri-syllabic, a metrical effect not dignified in English. One slight variation of the accepted form I have occasionally attempted, following what appears to be a trick of emphasis not infrequently employed in the original—the repetition of one emphatic word three times in lieu of rhymes, as in this quatrain:—
Would you seek beauty, seek it underground;
Would you find strength—the strong are underground;
And would you next year seek my love and me,
Who knows but you must seek us—underground?
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