 | Firdausi in Exile and Other Poems |  |
187
RESERVE.
As when there peal along the astonished airJoy-bells of some exuberant town at play,
Laughing and shouting in its holiday,
And blind to apprehension, deaf to care,
One standing in the noisy market-square,
Pausing an instant, pondering—if he may,—
Will hear above the riot loud and gay
The vast cathedral-organ boom for prayer;
So when I hold your beauty in my arms
Above the tumult of the pulse, there rings
A music welling from diviner things;
Your soul reveals to me her nobler charms,
And in the light that dazzles and disarms,
My too vain-glorious spirit droops her wings.
| Firdausi in Exile and Other Poems | |