Moonlight

thx

In the still of a warm summer's night,
I venture towards the barn with saddle in hand.
Stirrups dangle and clang with no one in sight,
I blissfully tack up my steed for a moonlight ride.

We glide together through sweet smelling meadows,
Not a care in the world only smiles.
Guided by the moon's light and shadows,
We quickly move up the hill for another view.

Wind in our hair and sparks in our stride,
We fly through the hilltop's water mists.
There's nothing like this but pride.
Our backs to city lights, the other view,

We find calmness of the trail.
A warm summer breeze upon us,
We see a mother and her quail.
The barn in sight, we pick up speed.

Laughter is in the air,
What a ride it's been,
And we race on without a care.
We proudly halt, and walk into the barn.

What time the meanest brick and stone
Take on a beauty not their own,
And past the flaw of builded wood
Shines the intention whole and good,
And all the little homes of man
Rise to a dimmer, nobler span;
When colour's absence gives escape
To the deeper spirit of the shape,

Then earth's great architecture swells
Among her mountains and her fells
Under the moon to amplitude
Massive and primitive and rude:

Then do the clouds like silver flags
Stream out above the tattered crags,
And black and silver all the coast
Marshalls its hunched and rocky host,
And headlands striding sombrely
Buttress the land against the sea,
The darkened land, the brightening wave
And moonlight slants through Merlin's cave.

As a pale phantom with a lamp
Ascends some ruined 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 splendour 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 everyday;
Only the spirit glorifies
With its own tints the sober grey.

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.

   

no idea....