Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, and Salámán and Absál / Together with a Life of Edward Fitzgerald and an Essay on Persian Poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson

THE FITZGERALD CENTENARY EDITION
RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY EDWARD FITZGERALD
TOGETHER WITH A LIFE OF EDWARD FITZGERALD AND AN ESSAY ON PERSIAN POETRY BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON
PEACOCK, MANSFIELD & Co., Ltd. PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON MCMIX
Boyle, Son & Watchurst, Printers, &c. Warwick Square, London, E.C.

Old Fitz, who from your suburb grange Where once I tarried for a while, Glance at the wheeling Orb of change And greet it with a kindly smile; Whom yet I see, as there you sit Beneath your sheltering garden tree, And watch your doves about you flit And plant on shoulder, hand and knee, Or on your head their rosy feet, As if they knew your diet spares Whatever moved in that full sheet Let down to Peter at his prayers;

But none can say That Lenten fare makes Lenten thought, Who reads your golden Eastern lay, Than which I know no version done In English more divinely well; A planet equal to the sun; Which cast it, that large infidel Your Omar: and your Omar drew Full-handed plaudits from our best In modern letters....
Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Edward FitzGerald was born in the year 1809, at Bredfield House, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, being the third son of John Purcell, who, subsequently to his marriage with a Miss FitzGerald, assumed the name and arms proper to his wife’s family.