Explanation of the poem: "Rubaiyyat of Umar Khayyam"

Stanza 1: 

When dawn approaches all that is non-luminous disappears and everything else becomes visible. The sun hunts and chases the night off, following it, encircling it and getting hold of it. When good comes, the evil has no choice to exist. When knowledge blooms it engulfs ignorance. When all is dark and mysterious, with no gleam of hope, a single light gives a new experience to all. As Shakespeare says:

“All cheerless, dark and deadly”

The day has dawned, the night has ended, and the stars have vanished. The banishment of night is due to the coming of light. The whole world brightens up, catching up in the embrace of light. It may be the light of day or that of knowledge. It dispels ignorance, illuminating the path of beauty and glory. When there is darkness all around and people are immersed in despair, hope dispels all their fears and gives them new life. Every one discovers a new world. This breaking news is put forth in the quatrain using an imaginative and metaphoric way- a mystic way.

Stanza 2: 

Hope is illusive and deceptive. It either vanishes or prospers. The general human nature is to hope but it is indeed a defeat for man. Every being is busy in achieving something. As W. H. Auden says:

“The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews”

We should learn from our failures and work hard for eternal success. For all our achievements and failures are transitory. As often quoted Success is getting up just one more time when one falls down.

“Success is a journey not a destination”

We should not feel proud of our success or depressed by our failures.

Stanza 3: 

There is an inaccessible, invisible door, making it impossible to find reality. We are not enlightened to what is inside, a secret, a mystery. Allah has given us a power of limited approach. The realities of metaphysical phenomenon are not revealed to man. Science can very well explain DNA- a complete code of life but not the nature of soul. It is unable to find solutions for a veil lie between us and our future.

The poet also talks about mysticism and spirituality, of separate entities fusing together. The moment we become selfless. There remains no more “I”, we become one. As Paolo Coelho says:

“Carrying out the master work is not the work of the few, but of every human being on the face of Earth. And that while the master work will not reveal itself to us, everyone, beyond any shadow of doubt, can enter into the soul of the world. The soul of the world is nourished by people’s happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy and jealousy.  All things are one.”

Stanza 4: 

Whatever is written in one’s fate cannot be washed by any means. The fatalistic view observed finality in destiny. Whatever is ordained by Almighty is final. Our tears, wailings, lamentations and our tries, struggles, striving cannot change what providence has chalked out for us. Fate is unchangeable. If man is destined to be successful, he will be successful. If he is destined to have a miserable life, he will live in wretchedness. The finger that writes down fate does not stop to see what it has written; neither does it amend what it has ordained for man. Whatever is written is ultimate.

 Stanza 5: 

The poet regrets the shortness of the period of youth. The blooming roses and lively spirits, the sweet fragmented manuscript of youth comes to an abrupt, disappointing and regretful end. The nightingale- a great lover of roses, disappears. Nobody knows where it has gone. Life, as we know it on Earth, is temporary. Life after death is the real life. And the only thing that would help us there are our good deeds.