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VIII.

[The sun has long been set]

[_]

[This Impromptu appeared, many years ago, among the Author's poems, from which, in subsequent editions, it was excluded. It is reprinted, at the request of the Friend in whose presence the lines were thrown off.]

The sun has long been set,
The stars are out by twos and threes,
The little birds are piping yet
Among the bushes and trees;
There 's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,
And a far-off wind that rushes,
And a sound of water that gushes,
And the cuckoo's sovereign cry
Fills all the hollow of the sky.
Who would go ‘parading’
In London, ‘and masquerading,’
On such a night of June
With that beautiful soft half-moon,
And all these innocent blisses?
On such a night as this is!
1804.
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