Omar Khayyām, ~1120
Quatrains
A Persian mathematician and astronomer wrote four-line poems about the one Life we can verify. From FitzGerald's translation:
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, before we too into the dust descend; dust into dust, and under dust, to lie — without wine, without song, without singer, and without end.
Some for the glories of this world; and some sigh for the prophet's paradise to come. Ah, take the cash, and let the credit go, nor heed the rumble of a distant drum.
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.
And if the wine you drink, the lip you press, end in what all begins and ends in — yes: think then you are today what yesterday you were — tomorrow you shall not be less.
Waste not your hour, nor in the vain pursuit of this and that endeavor and dispute; better be jocund with the fruitful grape than sadden after none, or bitter, fruit.