The Setting of the Moon

As in the lonely nightO'er lakes and mountains bathed in silver light,When zephyr gaily plays,And visions meet our gaze,Strange forms that weave a powerIn the nocturnal hour,By distant shadows wroughtO'er hill and dale and gently flowing streams:The Moon descends unto the sky's last vergeBehind the ridge of Alp or Appenine,Or in the Tyrrhene sea her rays doth merge;And as she falls, no radiance more doth shine,The shadows fade, and allThe world lies wrapped in one funereal pall;Bereaved the night remains;And singing in impassioned, mournful strains,The wanderer salutes the last, faint rayOf her who lit his wayWith argent crescent in the spheres divine:

Even thus youth wanes and flies,And every joyaunce dies,And Hope expires, the reed whereon we leantIn happier days, ere every bliss was spent,And ere our life obscureAnd desolate became.The weary wanderer gazes on the sceneOf sable hue that now doth intervene,And vainly asketh whySo dire a path before him yet should lie;And as unto his eyeThe world appeareth changed,He finds himself no more what he hath been,But to the world and all its ways estranged.

Too happy and too gayOur span of mortal lifeWould seem unto the powers that rule above,If youthfulness were to endure for aye,Wherein a thousand sorrows yield one joy;Too gentle the decreeWhence all that liveth doomed to death we see,Unless a gift were made,When men have finished half of their long way,Than death itself with greater terrors fraught;The worst of ills and the extreme of woe,Old age was found by an unswerving doom,Wherein desire doth glow,Hope wanes and pales and dwindles down to nought,The fountains of delight are frozen and quelled,The sorrow's greater, and all bliss withheld.

Ye mountains and ye plains,When fall the rays that in the West adorn IWith silvery trace the sable veil of night,Ye shall not be forlornFor many hours: the Eastern skies ere longYe shall perceive aglowWith break of day and early rise of morn,Whom following, the Sun his fires doth show,And blazing all aroundIn full effulgence strong,With seas of light invadesThe space above and the terrestrial glades.But life of man, when lovely youth is spent,No other light hath found,Nor to existence other dawn is lent:'Tis lonely and bereaved even to its close:And to the night that weighs on later years,By the decree of doom,As goal is given the silence of the tomb.