Quick thought on Quatrain LI from Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it

-- Omar Khayyam (from Edward Fitzgerald's famous translation of Khayyam's Rubaiyat)

One of my favorite parts of this verse (besides, you know, being an absolutely perfect four-line poem with an absolutely affecting image) is how metrically complex the first two lines are. I'm going to go into this, but first look at the last two lines:

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it

Absolutely straightforward Iambic pentameter. With the stresses:

Shall LURE it BACK to CAN-cel HALF a LINE
nor ALL thy TEARS wash OUT a WORD of IT.

There is only one polysyllabic word, with emphasis clearly fitting the blank verse. Sure, the "it" right at the end is a bit weak, only stressed because it's at the end and because of the "WRIT/WIT/IT" rhyme of the quatrain form, but basically the only ways to pronounce this in English either:

1) Keep all the stressed syllables as above but add stress to some of the unstressed syllables.
OR
2) Keep all the unstressed syllables but remove stress from some of the stressed syllables.

What's more, you can say the whole of the two lines in one or two phrases. It might sound awkward to start with "Shall" and "Nor" but the third line leads into the fourth pretty well with just a single, small pause. "ba-DOOM ba-DOOM, ba-DOOM, etc." It's like a drumbeat or a limerick. There aren't any tricks, just a simple metrical patter. I'm a poetry layman, but I think what I'm saying is simple: it's hard to get much more straightforward as blank verse than the last two lines (maybe replace IT with THAT, I suppose, heh). They're beautiful lines, especially in the context of the poem, but they're strikingly simple metrically.

Now, finally, let's check out those first two lines:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

.

If it's not too embarrassing, try and say that out aloud, or, what's even more fun, imagine yourself saying the lines aloud. Note the more complex structure of stressed syllables that still form Iambic feet, but now have several polysyllabic words, several "tricky" unstressed syllables ("thy PI-e-TY", "and, HAVing WRIT,"), and several pauses unrelated to the line. Those colons make you stop, right (and to a lesser extent, the commas)? You stop after 6 syllables, right?, and then, (possibly) instead of stopping after the incomplete "and, having writ," you the reader rather go to the next line's first foot: "Moves on". Then, making yet another detour of a pause, you go to the final eight syllables. These eight syllables ("Nor all thy piety nor wit") work as an unbroken phrase, a phrase which itself seems to flow right into the third line with an incomplete thought. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I'm adding anything specious here. The punctuation demands this type of phrasing. Either you say these two ten-syllable (Iambic pentameter) lines as three phrases (containing six, then, six, then eight syllables, respectively) or as four phrases (six, four, two, eight). That's pretty complex, disoriented, and makes the couplet even more impressive, considering that in two lines, Khayyam (and Fitzgerald) also create all of the set-up necessary for the second couplet's gigantic thematic statement.

In this simple (but reasonable) metrical analysis, the phrases in this quatrain are, more or less, 6-6-8-10-10 or 6-6-18-10 syllables long, even though the rhyme scheme falls on the 10th, 20th, and 40th syllables. So you have a snake with two tails which converge as you follow them up to the head. You have this driving rhythm of the blank verse which delineates the ultimate unit of time (Iambic feet are like heartbeats; ba-DOOM, ba-DOOM, ba-DOOM) and your larger units of time (the phrases) and your larger units of word (lines) are completely disjoint for these first two lines. They meet on the downbeat of the Iambic feet, and arguably at the end of the first line, sure, but only in a way that denies any real unity. Then, after what feels like many lines (for we've heard many phrases and pauses already after just two short lines), the poem's measures of time and words come together, like a jazz ensemble solving a polyrhythm, into one unbroken unity and simplicity of phrases that grow ever longer and ever more exacting.

I don't know that I am qualified to say more, except that this is an exhausting masterpiece of a four-line poem that promises an eternity beyond the poem as the moving finger continues to write, for the phrases will grow at once beyond the ten syllables of a line first to phrases that mark the entirety of poems, then to the entirety of rambling epics, then to phrases lasting years, lasting lives, lasting civilizations, then to a single phrase lasting an eternity, exacting a measure of spirit from the reader in each metric foot, feet all of us at some point lose the vitality to outrun. Oh, how the artless and the guileless and the gnashing and the regretful will unite in the oblivion's beat of infinity's drums, heedless to our words, our deepest longing, our cleverest wit, our bitterest tears of regret.