Waste not your hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute;
Better be [jocund]1 with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

L. Lehmann sets lines 3-4

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ second edition: "merry"

Text Authorship:

• by Edward Fitzgerald (1809 - 1883), no title, appears in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, Second Edition, no. 56, appears in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, Third Edition, no. 54, appears in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, Fourth Edition, no. 54, first published 1868 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

• a text in Persian (Farsi) by Hakim Omar Khayyám (c1048 - c1122) [text unavailable]
  • Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Granville Ransome Bantock, Sir (1868 - 1946), "Waste not your hour, nor in the vain pursuit", published 1906 [ soli, chorus, and orchestra ], from Omar Khayyám, Part I, no. 54, Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [sung text not yet checked]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

• by Liza Lehmann (1862 - 1918), "Ah, fill the Cup: -- What boots it to repeat", 1896 [ tenor ], from In a Persian Garden, no. 19, recitative
  • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
    

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2009-01-12
Line count: 4
Word count: 30