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!

These lines come from Edward FitzGerald’s celebrated Victorian-era English rendering of the Persian poet Omar Khayyám, published as Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. FitzGerald’s first edition appeared in 1859 (anonymously), with later revised editions following. The quatrain belongs to the poem’s recurring carpe diem mood: a speaker imagines retreating from public ambition and metaphysical speculation into a simple, pastoral scene where companionship, poetry, bread, and wine suffice. Although presented as “Omar,” the tone and phrasing reflect FitzGerald’s own 19th‑century sensibility and his talent for creating memorable English verse rather than a strictly literal translation.

The quatrain idealizes a self-contained happiness grounded in immediacy and human presence. “A Book of Verses,” “a Jug of Wine,” and “a Loaf of Bread” evoke art, pleasure, and sustenance—the essentials of a good life—while “Thou” makes companionship the transforming element. The “Wilderness” suggests a world stripped of social status, wealth, and conventional comforts; yet with love and song it becomes “Paradise enow” (paradise enough). The passage encapsulates the Rubáiyát’s broader skepticism toward grand systems and its preference for lived experience: meaning is not discovered in distant heavens but made in the present moment through shared delight.

1) “Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, / A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou / Beside me singing in the Wilderness— / And Wilderness is Paradise enow.”
2) “A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, / A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou / Beside me singing in the Wilderness— / And Wilderness is Paradise enow.”