Impromptu In The Assize Court, Nottingham,

A poem by Horace Smith

On seeing BRET HARTE come upon the Bench.

Thanks for an hour of laughing
In a world that is growing old;
Thanks for an hour of weeping
In a world that is growing cold;
For we who have wept with Dickens,
And we who have laughed with Boz,
Have renewed the days of our childhood
With his American Coz.