In the placid summer midnight, <br />Under the drowsy sky, <br />I seem to hear in the stillness <br />The moths go glimmering by. <br /> <br />One by one from the windows <br />The lights have all been sped. <br />Never a blind looks conscious - <br />The street is asleep in bed! <br /> <br />But I come where a living casement <br />Laughs luminous and wide; <br />I hear the song of a piano <br />Break in a sparkling tide; <br /> <br />And I feel, in the waltz that frolics <br />And warbles swift and clear, <br />A sudden sense of shelter <br />And friendliness and cheer . . . <br /> <br />A sense of tinkling glasses, <br />Of love and laughter and light - <br />The piano stops, and the window <br />Stares blank out into the night. <br /> <br />The blind goes out, and I wander <br />To the old, unfriendly sea, <br />The lonelier for the memory <br />That walks like a ghost with me.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-placid-summer-midnight/
