Beneath the deep veranda's shade, <br />When bats begin to fly, <br />I sit me down and watch -- alas! -- <br />Another evening die. <br />Blood-red behind the sere ferash <br />She rises through the haze. <br />Sainted Diana! can that be <br />The Moon of Other Days? <br /> <br />Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith, <br />Sweet Saint of Kensington! <br />Say, was it ever thus at Home <br />The Moon of August shone, <br />When arm in arm we wandered long <br />Through Putney's evening haze, <br />And Hammersmith was Heaven beneath <br />The moon of Other Days? <br /> <br />But Wandle's stream is Sutlej now, <br />And Putney's evening haze <br />The dust that half a hundered kine <br />Before my window raise. <br />Unkempt, unclean, athwart the mist <br />The seething city looms, <br />In place of Putney's golden gorse <br />The sickly babul blooms. <br /> <br />Glare down, old Hecate, through the dust, <br />And bid the pie-dog yell, <br />Draw from the drain its typhoid-term, <br />From each bazaar its smell; <br />Yea, suck the fever from the tank <br />And sap my strength therewith: <br />Thank Heaven, you show a smiling face <br />To little Kitty Smith!<br /><br />Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-moon-of-other-days/
