Few people would think of Omar Khayam as ascetic:
Clearly, Omar sees himself as aesthetic, not ascetic. But is the distinction real? If bread is "enow", isn't Omar denying himself caviar, and fruit, and dessert? Like the monk, Omar eschews some sensual pleasures for those he finds greater -- or at least sufficient.A book of verses underneath the bough,
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness --
O wilderness were Paradise Enow....
We see St. Francis as ascetic. Franciscans (including their founder) swear vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. In doing so, they forsake love, worldly goods and pleasures, and freedom. Is this an ascetic choice? Or, like Omar's, is it an aesthetic one? Francis, after all, appears to have been the most joyful of men. To him, the world, nay, the entire universe, was like a small village or a pleasant home. His asceticism led him to take joy in every bird that flew by, and every man-eating wolf that he befriended. Rather than being awed by the sun and the moon, he called them his brother and sister.
The Victorian aesthetes like Oscar Wilde were not ascetic. They sought and lived for pleasure. But did they find it? Or did Francis and his crew of shabby beggars find more aesthetic pleasure in their ascetic lives than Wilde, or Khayam?