Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — 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.