I went to-night by the wooden bridge
That steps across the stream;
And I leant a little over its ledge
To take a half-hour's dream.
For sweetly to their depths were stirr'd
Our hearts two nights ago,
When she and I stood still and heard
The stream sing on below.
But all was changed and cold to me,
The charm had fled away;
The light that lit up hill and tree
Had lost its old display.
And yet the moon was in the sky,
The stream sang sweet and clear;
Now, heart, canst thou not tell me why
I held that night so dear?
Was it that she beside me stood,
Like some one from above,
And sent through all my rougher mood
The gentleness of love?
Or that mine eyes partook the tone
Of hers, and saw the earth
Like one great book wide open thrown
Beneath a better birth?
To this my heart would not reply,
Nor speak its thoughts to me;
And still the stream and field and sky
Grew strange and cold to see.
Now what, I question'd still, can bring
The old look back again,
And place as in a fairy ring
This spot, and still my pain.
Then some sweet spirit in the air,
Whose mission is to move
Around young bosoms, heard my pray'r,
And whisper'd 'One you love.'
O sudden voice of sweet surprise,
What truth is in thy tone,
That two can find a paradise
Where one—but gloom alone.
Thine, then, was all the light and bliss
That made that night so dear;
Come! wake me with thy sweetest kiss,
And let thy soul be here.
Vain wish! yet strange that two sweet eyes
And brow and neck of snow
Could make the moon within the skies
Pour down her softest glow;
And stranger still one form held dear,
Standing beside my own,
Had pow'r to make the stream so clear,
And sing with such a tone.