II.—WINTER-MORN IN TOWN.

Through yellow fog all things take spectral shapes: Lamps dimly gleam, and through the window pane The light is shed in short and broken lane; And "darkness visible" pants, yawns, and gapes. From roofs the water drips, as from high capes, Half-freezes as it falls. Like cries of pain Fog-signals faintly heard, and then again Grave warning words to him who rashly apes The skater, nearer. All is muffled fast In dense dead coils of vapour, nothing clear— The world disguised in mumming masquerade. O'er each a dull thick clinging veil is cast, And no one is what fain he would appear: Nor any well-marked track on which to tread,