Copied From The Album Of A Wholesale House In The City

It is the precious province of true thought--

Of the divine creations of the mind--

To live unwearied in a heart overwrought

By busy intercourse with town--Mankind:

Poor merchant I! whom the dull world's trade-wind

Blows ever onward on a steady sea,

Feel oftentimes, mid murkiest men, refined

By visitants that come alone to me.

Perchance I class not with the worldly wise;

But mine is not the spirit that avoids,

Mid temporal dealings, these communions strange,

Albeit "disgracious to the city's eyes,"

Often I meet rare Trinculo at Lloyd's!

And Hamlet sweetly walks with me on 'Change!