The Rubaiyat of Ohow Dryyam With Apologies to Omar — A Closer Reading

Stanza Structure and Refrain Patterns

Duff closely follows the Rubaiyat's aaba rhyme scheme and its use of repeated refrains. Quatrains II, V, and X each end with a line that recurs as a refrain: 'And still the Morals-tinkers plot and plan / New, sterner, stricter Statutes to indite'; 'The Bird of Time flies with a steadier wing / But roosts with sleepless Eye—a Coffee Souse!'; and 'The Scanty Stock we set our hearts upon...' These refrains create a rhythmic lament, echoing the original's meditation on transience but redirected toward the dwindling supply of alcohol. The repetition underscores the monotony of enforced sobriety, as the speaker cycles through variations on the same complaint.

Recurring Images of Loss and Substitution

The poem is built on a series of substitutions: wine becomes coffee, beer becomes tea, the tavern becomes the coffee-house. Quatrain III describes a 'deathly Pallor' on the nose that once 'bourgeoned with color of the rose,' a clear reference to the red nose of a drinker now gone pale. 'Johnny Walker—Water goes' replaces the whiskey brand with plain water. The 'Book of Blue Laws' replaces the 'Book of Verses' from the original, and the beloved's sigh is met with a sardonic correction. These substitutions are not merely comic; they convey a sense of deprivation and absurdity, as the speaker tries to find solace in 'a pot of Tea, a piece of Toast' while longing for 'the beer of Yesterday.'

Movement Between Interior and Exterior Scenes

The poem shifts between the coffee-house, the 'gilded Bar' of memory, and imagined escapes to 'Canada or Scotland or Algiers.' Quatrain IV invites the beloved to 'the Coffee-house' for a 'new and temperate Carouse,' while Quatrain VI places the speaker 'underneath the Bough' with tea and toast, only to dismiss the pastoral setting as a 'Desert.' The interior spaces—bars, coffee-houses, homes—are contrasted with the 'Wilderness' of a dry America. The speaker's mind moves restlessly from present deprivation to past indulgence and future flight, a pattern that mirrors the original's carpe diem urgency but with a distinctly modern, Prohibition-era anxiety.

Voice and Satirical Targets

The speaker adopts a tone of mock-heroic lament, addressing the beloved with the same apostrophes as the original but undercutting them with bathos. 'Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears / Today of past Regrets and future Fears' is immediately followed by 'Tomorrow!—Why, Tomorrow I may be / In Canada or Scotland or Algiers!' The 'Morals-tinkers' are the primary satirical target, along with 'Blue Laws' and the 'legal Finger' that writes and cannot be lured back. The poem also mocks the temperance movement's promises: 'Some for a Sunday without Taint, and Some / Sigh for Inebriate Paradise to come.' Duff's voice is consistently sardonic, never fully despairing, and the humor arises from the incongruity between the lofty Persian form and the mundane reality of Prohibition.

Readers familiar with FitzGerald's Rubaiyat will recognize the scaffolding Duff borrows, but the poem stands on its own as a period piece of Prohibition-era satire. The quatrains reward attention to how Duff twists the original's imagery—the 'Moving Finger' becomes a 'legal Finger,' the 'Bird of Time' becomes a 'Coffee Souse.' The poem is best read aloud to catch the rhythm of the refrains and the sly substitutions. It offers a snapshot of a specific cultural moment, when the Land of the Free was, as the speaker puts it, 'washed—and dried.'

Reading The Rubaiyat of Ohow Dryyam, I felt the ache of empty barstools, that odd, shared grief for watered-down spirits. It made me think of my father’s old copy of The Works of Rudyard Kipling: One Volume Edition — A Reader’s Guide, though the reasons slip away. Perhaps it’s the way both voices carry empire—one of lost taverns, the other of lost frontiers—and how softly those worlds fade.