but which might sometimes be
suspected of earthlier meanings lurking beneath the pantheistic veil. It
was against the poetry of such Sufis that Omar Kayyam rose in revolt.
Loving frankness and truth, he threw all disguises aside, and became the
exponent of materialistic epicureanism naked and unashamed.

A fair specimen of the finest Sufi poetry is _The Rose Garden of Sa'di_,
which it may be convenient to quote because of its easy accessibility in
English translation. Sa'di also was a twelfth-century poet, although of
a later time than Omar. He was a student of the College in Baghdad, and
he lived as a hermit for sixty years in Shiraz, singing of love and war.
His mind is full of mysticism, wisdom and beauty going hand in hand
through a dim twilight land. Dominating all his thought is the primary
conviction that the soul is essentially part of God, and will return to
God again, and meanwhile is always revealing, in mysterious hints and
half-conscious visions, its divine source and destiny. Here and there
you will find the deep fatalism of the East, as in the lines--

"Fate will not alter for a thousand sighs,
Nor prayers importunate, nor hopeless cries.
The guardian of the store-house of the wind
Cares nothing if the widow's lantern dies."

These, however, are relieved by that which makes a friend of fate--

"To God's beloved even the dark hour
Shines as the morning glory after rain.
Except by Allah's grace thou hast no power
Nor strength of arm such rapture to attain."

It was against this sort of poetry that Omar Kayyam revolted. He had not
any proof of such spiritual assurances, and he did not want that of
which he had no proof. He understood the material world around him, both
in its joy and sorrow, and emphatically he did not understand any other
world. He became a sort of Marlowe's Faust before his time, and
protested against the vague spirituality of the Sufis by an assertion of
what may be called a brilliant animalism. He loved beauty as much as
they did, and there is an oriental splendour about all his work, albeit
an earthly splendour. He became, accordingly, an audacious epicurean who
"failed to find any world but this," and set himself to make the best of
what he found. His was not an exorbitant ambition nor a fiery passion of
any kind. The bitterness and cynicism of it all remind us of the
inscription upon Sardanapalus' tomb--"Eat, drink, play, the rest i