At night, with shaded eyes, the summer moon
In tender meditation downward glances
At the dark earth, far-set in dim expanses,
And, welcomer than blazoned gold of noon,
Down through the air her steady lights are strewn.
The breezy forests sigh in moonlit trances,
And the full-hearted poet, waking, fancies
The smiling hills will break in laughter soon.
Oh thus, thou gentle Nature, dost thou shine
On me to-night. My very limbs would melt,
Like rugged earth beneath yon ray divine,
Into faint semblance of what they have felt:
Thine eye doth color me, O wife, O mine,
With peace that in thy spirit long hath dwelt!