Ah, fill the Cup:--what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!
This is the thirty-eighth quatrain of the FitzGerald's Rubaiyat. The same motif as in previous quatrains runs in these lines as well. The essence of Time is that it flies, waiting for no one, stopping at nothing, constantly moving forward. And in this constant ho-hum of time, we need to live mindful of the fact that our time is limited. Fill the cup (make merry and enjoy), what purpose/profit (boots [archaic]: profit) will it serve to repeat the same known facts about how time is slipping by beneath our feet. Why fret about the unknown and yet unborn future and the already dead past. You can not do anything about the either of them, so why worry about them. Enjoy the today!. Live for today and make it sweet.
