the saddest part of dying
is what you forgot to do
the ideas born in lucid dreams
that vanished in the hue
the mountains never seen
the oceans never crossed
the poems written on scraps of paper
a lover's smile now lost
the tears you held inside
the chances never taken
the landscape of your life
an oasis now forsaken

LXXI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

   Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

LXVI

I sent my Soul through the Invisible,

Some letter of that After-life to spell:

   And by and by my Soul return’d to me,

And answer’d “I Myself am Heav’n and Hell:”

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But there are very rare occasions when the translation is so good it actually supersedes the original, taking it to a wider audience. If there is an argument for anyone having done that, it is probably Edward FitzGerald with his translation of “The Rubaiyat” of Omar Khayyam.