Is that city: you could not,
Placing England's map before you,
Light on a more favoured spot.

If no clear translucent river
Winds 'neath willow-shaded paths,
"Children and adults" may shiver
All day in "Chalybeate baths:"

If "the inimitable Fechter"
Never brings the gallery down,
Constantly "the Great Protector"
There "rejects the British crown:"

And on every side the painter
Looks on wooded vale and plain
And on fair hills, faint and fainter
Outlined as they near the main.

There I met with him, my chosen
Friend--the 'long' but not 'stern swell,' {15a}
Faultless in his hats and hosen,
Whom the Johnian lawns know well:-

Oh my comrade, ever valued!
Still I see your festive face;
Hear you humming of "the gal you'd
Left behind" in massive bass:

See you sit with that composure