Omar Revisited

The Old Omar:
Omar Khayyam

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!

The New Omar:
G.K.Chesterton

A book of verses underneath the bough,
Provided that the verses do not scan:
A flask of wine, a loaf of bread and thou,
Short-haired, all angles, looking like a man;

But let the wine be unfermented, pale,
Of chemicals compounded, Lord knows how,
This were indeed the Prophet's Paradise -
Ah Paradise were wilderness enow.

The Newest Omar :

Frank Sheed

A jug and a book and a dame,
And a nice shady nook for the same.

from The New Guest Room Book, Sheed & Ward, 1957

Wodehouse on Omar:

"And I was tooling along a mossy path with the brow a bit wet with honest sweat, when there came to my ears the unmistakable sound of somebody reading poetry to someone, and the next moment I found myself confronting a mixed twosome who had dropped anchor beneath a shady tree in what is known as a leafy glade. ... I thought it odd that a chap like [Cream] should be doing such a thing. Limericks, yes. If he had been reciting limericks to her, I could have understood it. But this was stuff from one of those books they bind in limp purple leather and sell at Christmas. I wouldn't care to swear to it, but it sounded extremely like Omar Khayyam."

from How Right You Are, Jeeves, P.G.Wodehouse, Harper & Row, 1960