The Night-Moth's Comment: [Alighted Upon a Faded Autograph Letter of Chesterfield]

HERE is a gracious letter that one writ
Who thought this rugged world of land and seas,
Among whose suns and rains we shadows flit, —
In sorrow and in mystery, if you please, —
A place to be polite and take one’s ease.

My lord, above your old, dead courtesy,
Out of the light of stars, in lovelier light,
All summer-green and glad, this moth to me
Seems Nature’s comment, clear and brief and bright,
On man’s poor dusty vanity, to-night.