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.
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