Poems (Bushnell)/Changed

by Frances Louisa Bushnell

II CHANGED

Fair is the night, ay, fair and deep; The moonlight drowns the vale;My eyes are heavy, but not with sleep, And the night-moth droops her sail.

There's not so much as a sigh in the air; The stars are ghostly and few;And silver-pale are the meadows, where So coldly drops the dew.

But the haunting shadows are never still, They wander all night alone,And the sleepless insects drone and shrill In a lonely monotone.

Ah! long ago was a summer night Like this, and yet other far,For the moonlight flowed, and the air hung light, And happy was every star.

The dew that night was a blissful balm, And seemed on the heart to fall;The calm was an overflowing calm, And love was the life of all.

Then piping choirs shrilled high, as now;  But hushed is the sylvan flute Of the nightingale that dreamed on the bough,  And a tenderer music is mute.

'Tis the same save that, and yet all is strange,  As the soul of the night were fled; Yes, I look and look, but can see no change,  Except that my world is dead.