The Rubaiyat: Second Edition, Quatrain XCIX

Quatrain XCIX links back to the previous quatrain, especially the last two lines of that Quatrain:  And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,/By some not unfrequented Garden-side.



Second Edition:  Quatrain XCIX

Whither resorting from the vernal Heat
Shall Old Acquaintance Old Acquaintance greet,
     Under the Branch that leans above the Wall
To shed his Blossom over head and feet. 


This quatrain was removed and does appear in the Fifth Edition.  Just why he removed it is not known.  However, Quatrains XCIIIX and XCIX are prophetic, according to an anecdote related by one of Khayyam's pupils, Khwajah Nizami:

"I often used to hold conversations with my teacher, Omar Khayyam, in a garden; and one day he said to me, "My tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind may scatter roses over it.'  I wondered at the words he spake, but I knew that his were no idle words.  Years after, when I chanced to revisit Naishapur, I went to his final resting place, and lo! it was just outside a garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched their boughs over the garden wall, and dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them."

 from Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Illustrations by Edmund Dulac
Garden City Books  



What's a bit unusual in this quatrain occurs in line two where "Old" is capitalized.  That "Acquaintance" is capitalized is not unusual for FitzGerald usually capitalizes nouns, but this is the only time, as far as I can remember, that an adjective was capitalized.  For example, "vernal,"  an adjective in the first line is in lower case.  I don't know if this is true for other readers, but the first thought that entered my mind when I read "Old Acquaintance" was of Robert Burns' first lyric to his very popular song that appears every New Year's Eve: "Auld Lang Syne.   The problem, of course, is that Burns wrote "auld acquaintance,"  not "old acquaintance."

Just a thought.