The sky is dappled blue with clouds that stray.
⁠Like frozen waves the roofs go rolling down
⁠The valley steeps, but weatherworn and brown
Steeple and stack shoot mastlike toward the day.

Pandean pipes whereon the winds would play,
⁠Long rows of chimney-pots the ridges crown;
⁠And black on slates and skylights flicker and frown
Shadows of smoke that streams and wings that sway.

The city's monstrous voices surge to me,
⁠The mist afar its fantasies arranges,
And sudden windows twinkle joyously.

A blue grey streak, a fixed uncertainty,
⁠A fallen slip of sky that shifts and changes,
The Forth beyond them broadens into sea.

The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean.
⁠We bowled along a road that curved its spine
⁠Superbly sinuous and serpentine
Thro' silent symphonies of glowing green.

Sudden the Firth came on us — sad of mien.
⁠No cloud to colour it, no breeze to line,
⁠A sheet of dark, dull glass, without a sign
Of life and death, two shelves of sand between.

Water and sky merged blank in mist together.
⁠The fort loomed spectral, and the guard-ship's spars
⁠⁠Traced vague, black shadows on the shimmery glaze.

We felt the dim strange years, the grey strange weather,
⁠The still strange land unvexed of sun or stars,
⁠⁠Where Lancelot rides clanking thro' the haze.

The sky saggs low with convoluted cloud.
⁠Heavy and imminent, rolled from rim to rim.
⁠And wreaths of mist beveil the further brim
Of the leaden sea, all spiritless and cowed.

The rain is falling sheer and strong and loud.
⁠The strand is desolate, the distance grim
⁠With stormful threats, the wet stones glister dim.
And to the wall the dank umbrellas crowd.

At home! — the soaked shrubs whisper dismal-mooded.
⁠The rails are strung with drops, and steeped the grasses,
⁠⁠Black chimney-shadows streak the shiny slates.

A draggled fishwife screeches at the gates,
⁠The baker hurries dripping on, and hooded
⁠⁠In her stained skirt a pretty housemaid passes.

Flaccus, you write us charming songs:
⁠No bard we know possesses
In such perfection what belongs
⁠To brief and bright addresses;

No man can say that life is short
⁠With mien so little fretful;
No man to virtue's paths exhort
⁠In phrases less regretful;

Or touch with more serene distress
⁠On fortune's ways erratic;
And then delightfully digress
⁠From Alp to Adriatic.

All this is well, no doubt, and tends
⁠Barbarian minds to soften;
But, Quintus — we, we are your friends —
⁠Why tell us this so often?

Why feign to spread a cheerful feast,
⁠And then thrust in our face
These barren scraps (to say the least)
⁠Of stoic commonplace?

Recount, and welcome, your pursuits:
⁠Sing Lyde's loosened hair;
Sing drums and Berycynthian flutes;
⁠Sing parsley-wreaths; but spare, —

Ah, spare to tell, what none deny,
⁠That fairest things decay;
That time and gold have wings to fly;
⁠That all must fate obey!

Or bid us dine — on this day week —
⁠And pour us — if you can —
From inmost bin, as velvet sleek,
⁠Your cherished Cæcuban;

Of that we fear not overplus;
⁠But your didactic "tap"
(Forgive us !) grows monotonous;
⁠Nunc vale! Verbum sap.