Omar Khayyam (209) “those oceans of learning never…”

Those oceans of learning and culture
          who burned with the light 
of science in their day,
                  never found an exit 
                            from this pitch-dark
night.
They delivered themselves of some fables, 
            then fell deep asleep.

Translated by Juan Cole
from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 209