"I dearly love this London, this royal northern London, And am up in all its history, to Brutus and to Lud; But I wish that certain Puritan simplicities were undone, That the houses had more gable-ends, and the river less of mud. * * * * * But our river still is beautiful, rejoicing in the quaintest Old corners for a painter (till the new quays are begun). See there the line of distant hills, and where the blue is faintest, The brown sails of the barges lie slanting in the sun."