Quatrain 17
Quatrain 17 of 75
“They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahram, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.”
Reflection · Autumn
They say the lion and lizard keep the courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep. In autumn, walking through a garden that was once the center of something, you feel this verse in the air. Every civilization at its peak was once exactly that full of itself, exactly that certain of permanence. The lion is always coming. The lizard is already there.
The wild ass that stamps over Bahram's head in autumn does so without ceremony, without announcement. The cosmos doesn't arrange its ironies for an audience. They happen whether or not anyone is watching. Bahram lies fast asleep. The wild ass walks where the ground happens to be. The courts that once gloried and drank deep are now the finest real estate in the region for lizards who need shade.