Moonlight

As a pale phantom with a lamp         Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,     So glides the moon along the damp         Mysterious chambers of the air.     Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,         As if this phantom, full of pain,     Were by the crumbling walls concealed,         And at the windows seen again.     Until at last, serene and proud         In all the splendor of her light,     She walks the terraces of cloud,         Supreme as Empress of the Night.     I look, but recognize no more         Objects familiar to my view;     The very pathway to my door         Is an enchanted avenue.     All things are changed.    One mass of shade,         The elm-trees drop their curtains down;     By palace, park, and colonnade         I walk as in a foreign town.     The very ground beneath my feet         Is clothed with a diviner air;     White marble paves the silent street         And glimmers in the empty square.     Illusion!    Underneath there lies         The common life of every day;     Only the spirit glorifies         With its own tints the sober gray.     In vain we look, in vain uplift         Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind,     We see but what we have the gift         Of seeing; what we bring we find.