Where under crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to it for help—for it
Rolls impotently on as thou or I."
Omar has with justice been compared to Lucretius. Both were materialists, both believed not in a future life. "Lucretius built a system for himself in his poem ... it has a professed practical aim—to explain the world's self-acting machine to the polytheist, and to disabuse him of all spiritual ideas." Omar builds up no system, he only shows forth his own doubts and difficulties, "he loves to balance antitheses of belief, and settle himself in the equipoise of the sceptic."
The fact that there is no hereafter gives Lucretius no pain, but Omar who, if only his reason could let him, would believe, records his utter despair in words of passionate bitterness. He is not glad that there is no help anywhere.[[89]] And though he calls for the wine-cup, and listens to the voice within the tavern cry,
"Awake, my little ones, and fill the cup
Before Life's liquor in its cup be dry,"
yet he also looks back to the time, when he consorted with those who professed to know, and could say:
"With them the seed of wisdom did I sow,