The Rubaiyat
By Omar Khayyam

XII
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness–
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

The time has passed, I think, when one could assume that a common literary culture among people with at least a good high school education, would bring this verse to mind, one of the most quoted and famous in the English language, the epitome of middlebrow culture since the 1850’s.