With silent shades over one half the globe;
And slowly moving on her dewy feet,
She blends the varied colors infinite,
And with the border of her mighty garments
Blots everything; the sister she of Death
Leaves but one aspect indistinct, one guise
To fields and trees, to flowers, to birds and beasts,
And to the great and to the lowly born,
Confounding with the painted cheek of beauty
The haggard face of want, and gold with tatters.
Nor me will the blind air permit to see
Which carriages depart, and which remain,
Secret amidst the shades; but from my hand
The pencil caught, my hero is involved
Within the tenebrous and humid veil.

The concluding section of the poem, by chance or by wise design of
the author, remains a fragment. In this he follows his hero from the
promenade to the evening party, with an account of which The Night is
mainly occupied, so far as it goes. There are many lively pictures in
it, with light sketches of expression and attitude; but on the whole
it has not so many distinctly quotable passages as the other parts
of the poem. The perfunctory devotion of the cavalier and the lady
continues throughout, and the same ironical reverence depicts them
alighting from their carriage, arriving in the presence of the
hostess, sharing in the gossip of the guests, supping, and sitting
down at those games of chance with which every fashionable house was
provided and at which the lady loses or doubles her pin-money. In
Milan long trains were then the mode, and any woman might wear them,
but only patricians were allowed to have them carried by servants;