“The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that tossed you down into the Field,
He knows about it all—He knows—HE knows!”

Since his death his fame has increased mightily. All the world reads Omar Khayyám and praises FitzGerald. “His strange genius, so fitfully and coyly revealed, has given a new quality to English verse, almost all recent manifestations of which it pervades.” So says one of the later historians of our nineteenth century literature. And the man himself thought he had done nothing! Truly the race is not to the swift.

“Behold the Grace of Allah comes and goes
As to Itself is good: and no one knows
Which way it turns: in that mysterious Court
Not he most finds who furthest travels for ’t,
For one may crawl upon his knees Life-long,
And yet may never reach, or all go wrong:
Another just arriving at the Place
He toiled for, and—the Door shut in his Face:
Whereas Another, scarcely gone a Stride,
And suddenly—Behold he is inside!”