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.