The shadows of the summer trees
Made columns dark and long
Across the brightly sparkling turf,
And their leaves kept up a song—
A song they'd learned of the dreamy brook
That sung as it flowed along.
Oft have I heard that tune at night,
As it came from the waving wood,
When the breeze was reveling 'mong the boughs,
And stirring the solitude;
And it ever filled my youthful heart
With a wild and yearning mood.
I dreamed that I stood in a spot most like
A place that I had seen,
With its waving wood on a moonlit bank,
And turf of dewy sheen,
And its intertwining canopy,
With the moon and stars between.
The river that glided at my feet,
And trilled its murmured tone,
Had a sound like something I had heard
In the blissful years agone;
And I marveled how I reached that place,
Yet never the change had known.
The long grass waved from the water's edge,
And dipped in the silver tide;
And its shadow laid on the glittering waves
As the lashes of some young bride
Do droop o'er the clear, dark, shining well,
Where her timid feelings hide.
I thought 'twas strange I was standing there,
Alone with the midnight moon.
