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 the breath of a breeze ;
The stars are ghostly and few;
And out in the cold and motionless trees
I hear the drip o’ 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 my 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 hough;
And a tenderer music is unite.

’T is 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.