Moonlight

As a pale phantom with a lamp
&nbsp Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
&nbsp Mysterious chambers of the air.

Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
&nbsp As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
&nbsp And at the windows seen again.

Until at last, serene and proud
&nbsp In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
&nbsp Supreme as Empress of the Night.

I look, but recognize no more
&nbsp Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
&nbsp Is an enchanted avenue.

All things are changed. One mass of shade,
&nbsp The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
&nbsp I walk as in a foreign town.

The very ground beneath my feet
&nbsp Is clothed with a diviner air;
White marble paves the silent street
&nbsp And glimmers in the empty square.

Illusion! Underneath there lies
&nbsp The common life of every day;
Only the spirit glorifies
&nbsp With its own tints the sober gray.

In vain we look, in vain uplift
&nbsp Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind,
We see but what we have the gift
&nbsp Of seeing; what we bring we find.