 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
ON A PECULIAR EFFECT OF THE SMOKE OVER LONDON, SEEN BY A FROSTY SUNSET.
The smoke of the immense metropolisHangs in the still air like a pillar vast:
Such as, when God-warned Israel had past
The sea that parted into an abyss,
With wavy walls, whose tops did nod to kiss
Each other, went with them upon the blast,
And round them its protecting shadows cast;
Such at a distance seems unto me this!
But now the sun has smit it, and it turns
To red, and like the pillar of fire burns,
That went along with them by night, as did
The cloud by day—and now the sun is hid
Once more: and naught my wondering eye discerns,
Except a huge, memorial pyramid!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |