In a Copy of Omar Khayyam

Name: In a Copy of Omar Khayyam - In a Copy of Omar Khayyam
Author: James Russell Lowell

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.

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Chicago: James Russell Lowell, In a Copy of Omar Khayyam Original Sources, accessed October 31, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AA2HV7TQYBW2U82.

MLA: Lowell, James Russell. In a Copy of Omar Khayyam, Original Sources. 31 Oct. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AA2HV7TQYBW2U82.

Harvard: Lowell, JR, In a Copy of Omar Khayyam. Original Sources, retrieved 31 October 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AA2HV7TQYBW2U82.