The Moon of Other Days

 Beneath the deep veranda's shade,
 When bats begin to fly,
I sit me down and watch -- alas! --
 Another evening die.
Blood-red behind the sere ferash
 She rises through the haze.
Sainted Diana! can that be
 The Moon of Other Days?

Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith,
 Sweet Saint of Kensington!
Say, was it ever thus at Home
 The Moon of August shone,
When arm in arm we wandered long
 Through Putney's evening haze,
And Hammersmith was Heaven beneath
 The moon of Other Days?

But Wandle's stream is Sutlej now,
 And Putney's evening haze
The dust that half a hundered kine
 Before my window raise.
Unkempt, unclean, athwart the mist
 The seething city looms,
In place of Putney's golden gorse
 The sickly babul blooms.

Glare down, old Hecate, through the dust,
 And bid the pie-dog yell,
Draw from the drain its typhoid-term,
 From each bazaar its smell;
Yea, suck the fever from the tank
 And sap my strength therewith:
Thank Heaven, you show a smiling face
 To little Kitty Smith!

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