POE TRY.
A LONDON LANDSCAPE.
BEFORE me lies no purple distance wide, With faint horizon hills to bound my view. Tall houses close me in on every side,
Pierced here and there by meagre slits of blue.
'Tis not for me to watch the slow dawn come Across the quiet meadows dewy grey, 'Tis not for me to hear the brown bees hum Upon the gors)■ uplands all the day. But I can see one gracious growing thing : A. poplar-tree spreads fair beside my door.
Its bright, u.nrestful leaves keep flickering And whispering to the breezes evermore.
And when at eve the fires of sunset flare, And parapets and roofs are rimmed with gold, And like bold beacon-lights, flash here and there The dingy warehouse windows manifold, The little leaves upon my poplar-tree All in the wondrous glory shake and shake, Transmuted by the sunset alchemy Each one into a burnished golden flake.
Then by-and-by, from some dim realm afar, The dark comes down, and blots the world from sight, And 'twist the trembling poplar-leaves, a star Hangs like a shining blossom all the night.
FRANCES WYNNE.
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