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,
ALEX. H. JAPP, _in Belgravia_.