The sky is dappled blue with clouds that stray.
Like frozen waves the roofs go rolling down
The valley steeps, but weatherworn and brown
Steeple and stack shoot mastlike toward the day.
Pandean pipes whereon the winds would play,
Long rows of chimney-pots the ridges crown;
And black on slates and skylights flicker and frown
Shadows of smoke that streams and wings that sway.
The city's monstrous voices surge to me,
The mist afar its fantasies arranges,
And sudden windows twinkle joyously.
A blue grey streak, a fixed uncertainty,
A fallen slip of sky that shifts and changes,
The Forth beyond them broadens into sea.
