Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By James RussellLowell

353 In a Copy of Omar Khayyám

THESE pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,

Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;

The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,

Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.

Fit rosary for a queen, in shape and hue,

When Contemplation tells her pensive beads

Of mortal thoughts, forever old and new.

Fit for a queen? Why, surely then for you!

The moral? Where Doubt’s eddies toss and twirl

Faith’s slender shallop till her footing reel,

Plunge: if you find not peace beneath the whirl,

Groping, you may like Omar grasp a pearl.