Where all that this world soiled should be refined.

Often at night I tread those streets again

And see the alley glimmering in the rain,

Yet now I miss that sign of earlier tramps

A house with shadows of plane-boughs under lamps,

The secret house where once a beggar stood

Trembling and blind to show his woe for food.

And now I miss that friend who used to walk

Home to my lodgings with me, deep in talk,

Wearing the last of night out in still streets