As a pale phantom with a lamp <br />Ascends some ruin's haunted stair, <br />So glides the moon along the damp <br />Mysterious chambers of the air. <br /> <br />Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed, <br />As if this phantom, full of pain, <br />Were by the crumbling walls concealed, <br />And at the windows seen again. <br /> <br />Until at last, serene and proud <br />In all the splendor of her light, <br />She walks the terraces of cloud, <br />Supreme as Empress of the Night. <br /> <br />I look, but recognize no more <br />Objects familiar to my view; <br />The very pathway to my door <br />Is an enchanted avenue. <br /> <br />All things are changed. One mass of shade, <br />The elm-trees drop their curtains down; <br />By palace, park, and colonnade <br />I walk as in a foreign town. <br /> <br />The very ground beneath my feet <br />Is clothed with a diviner air; <br />While marble paves the silent street <br />And glimmers in the empty square. <br /> <br />Illusion! Underneath there lies <br />The common life of every day; <br />Only the spirit glorifies <br />With its own tints the sober gray. <br /> <br />In vain we look, in vain uplift <br />Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind; <br />We see but what we have the gift <br />Of seeing; what we bring we find.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/moonlight/
