This strain of sadness is sincere and true. To recognize the inevitable and not pretend to deceive one’s self is one thing, but to think that all is just and wise and best may be quite another. Omar felt that fate was inexorable, relentless and hard.
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.
He would have tempered her hardness with a little human love and tender pity, and bade the great Recorder leave much untold. He recognized the fact that the scheme could not be changed, and that even our brief existence depended upon our subservience to the great will that would neither break nor bend; but he still regretted that it was not better and kinder and more forgiving than it is. There is almost a wail in the strain of sadness in which he laments the rigor of unyielding fate.
Would that some winged Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!