The Rubaiyat: Second Edition, Quatrain XC

This quatrain is linked to the previous quatrain  in which the narrator eavesdrops on the Potter's creations as they comment in the Potter's absence.  The Potter, to me, suggests the Creator.


Second Edition:  Quatrain XC

And once again there gathered a scarce heard
Whisper among them; as it were, the stirr'd
    Ashes of some all but extinguished Tongue,
Which mine ear kindled into living Word.   



According to another Rubaiyat collection that I have, the Fifth Edition version of this quatrain is LXXXIII.  However, I don't see the relationship between XC and LXXXIII.  It seems to me, therefore, that this is one of the quatrains that FitzGerald added in the Second Edition but had removed by the time the Fifth Edition was published.  I can see why, for this quatrain really doesn't say much.  Although one might expect the following quatrain to tell us what that living Word might be, the first line of the following quatrain, Said one among them--"Surely not in vain," strikes me as ambiguous or awkwardly expressed.  It really doesn't flow smoothly from the previous quatrain.

Among the Potter's creations, one is speaking so quietly that it sounds as if it were just some ashes being stirred.  The reference here is obvious: ashes to ashes and dust to dust.  Possibly some long deceased human's ashes were gathered up in the clay used to create this pot.  I wonder if this is a vague reference to reincarnation.  That voice, Which mine ear kindled into living Word, was so faint that I wonder if he really heard anything at all. 

I think this was supposed to be an introductory quatrain, leading to some idea expressed in the following quatrain.  However, this didn't happen, so FitzGerald decided to remove it.