the midnight sun
Wordsworth made the country , but Lamb made the town ; and there is quite a band of poets nowadays who share his distaste for mountains , and take London for their muse . If you 'll promise not to cry again , I 'll recall some lines by a friend of mine which were written for town-tastes like ours . But perhaps you know them ? '' It will gratify my friend to learn that Rosalind had the verses I refer to by heart , and started off humming , -- `` Ah , London , London , our delight , Great flower that opens but at night , Great city of the midnight sun , Whose day begins when day is done ... Like dragon-flies the hansoms hover With jewelled eyes to catch the lover ; '' and so on , with a gusto of appreciation that must have been very gratifying to the author had he been present . Thus perceiving a taste for a certain modern style of poetry in my companion , I bethought me of a poem which I had written on the roadside a few days before , and which , I confess , I was eager to confide to some sympathetic ear . I was diffident of quoting it after such lines as Rosalind had recalled , but by the time we had reached our coffee , I plucked up courage to mention it . I had , however , the less diffidence in that it would have a technical interest for her , being indeed no other than a song of cycling a deux which had been suggested by one of those alarmist danger-posts always placed at the top of the pleasantest hills , sternly warning the cyclist that `` this hill is dangerous , '' -- just as in life there is always some minatory notice-board frowning upon us in the direction we most desire to take .