Fold itself up for the serener clime 245
Of years to come, and find its recompense
In that just expectation.—­Wit and sense,
Virtue and human knowledge; all that might
Make this dull world a business of delight,
Are all combined in Horace Smith.—­And these. 250
With some exceptions, which I need not tease
Your patience by descanting on,—­are all
You and I know in London. 
I recall
My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night. 
As water does a sponge, so the moonlight 255
Fills the void, hollow, universal air—­
What see you?—­unpavilioned Heaven is fair,
Whether the moon, into her chamber gone,
Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan
Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep; 260
Or whether clouds sail o’er the inverse deep,
Piloted by the many-wandering blast,
And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast:—­
All this is beautiful in every land.—­
But what see you beside?—­a shabby stand 265
Of Hackney coaches—­a brick house or wall
Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl
Of our unhappy politics;—­or worse—­
A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse
Mixed with the watchman’s, partner of her trade, 270
You must accept in place of serenade—­
Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring
To Henry, some unutterable thing. 
I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit
Built round dark caverns, even to the root 275
Of the living stems that feed them—­in whose bowers
There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers;
Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn
Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne
In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance, 280
Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance,
Pale in the open moonshine, but each one
Under the dark trees seems a little sun,
A meteor tamed; a fixed star gone astray
From the silver regions of the milky way;—­ 285
Afar the Contadino’s song is heard,
Rude, but made sweet by distance—­and a bird
Which cannot be the Nightingale, and yet
I know none else that sings so sweet as it
At this late hour;—­and then all is still—­ 290
Now—­Italy or London, which you will!

Next winter you must pass with me; I’ll have
My house by that time turned into a grave
Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care,
And all the dreams which our tormentors are; 295
Oh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and Smith were there,
With everything belonging to them fair!—­
We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek;
And ask one week to make another week
As like his father, as I’m unlike mine, 300