Poured out triumphant multitudes to gaze;
Youth, age, wealth, penury, smiling in the blaze;
The illumined atmosphere was warm and bland,
And Beauty’s groups, the fairest of the land,
Conspicuous, as in some wide festive room,
In open chariots passed with pearl and plume.
Amidst them he remarked a lovelier mien
Than e’er his thoughts had shaped, or eyes had seen;
The throng detained her till he reined his steed,
And, ere the beauty passed, had time to read