Revered in eleventh-century Persia as an astronomer, mathematician and philosopher, Omar Khayyam is now known chiefly for his Ruba’iyat. The short epigrammatic stanza form allowed poets of his day to express personal feelings, beliefs and doubts wiht wit and clarity, and Khayyam became one of its most accomplished masters with his touching meditations on the transience of human life and the natural world.