“The Rubáiyát”

1. A poem by the twelfth-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam . This is the poem's best-known stanza , in a celebrated translation by Edward FitzGerald:

   A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

   A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou

   Beside me singing in the Wilderness —

   Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow [enough]!