I found these often used in Fitzgerald's "Rubayyát" ( inspired by Omar Khayám), and selected three to post. I also couldn't resist to add one on "Magic Lantern", because its ghostly shadows generated by the sun in other translations arise from a "merry go-round" ( I was reminded of Kinbote's external - and internal - carousel). In SM, I remember VN has described his fascination with the magic lantern show ( which I got acquainted with, at first, through Ingmar Bergman). In these lines the sun is placed in the center, like VN as an author and not only his characters but the readers, too, become like regicidal "Shadows"...

I think it was Jerry Friedman ( or CHW?) who pointed out that the quality in VN's fragmentary nostalgia ( the 'Index Poem") is inferior to any among the most humble lines in Pale Fire. I considered it to be a kind of informal addition to VN's preface ( I don't have the book by me now, was it a 1966 post-script?), in the shape of a poem, with rhymes and chimes but not intended as having any kind of independent life outside the Preface...

1. I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

2.While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to thee--take that, and do not shrink.

3.Look to the blowing Rose about us--"Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the world I blow,
At once the silken tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."

Bonus:
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go

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