In the placid summer midnight, Under the drowsy sky, I seem to hear in the stillness The moths go glimmering by. One by one from the windows The lights have all been sped. Never a blind looks conscious -- The street is asleep in bed! But I come where a living casement Laughs luminous and wide; I hear the song of a piano Break in a sparkling tide; And I feel, in the waltz that frolics And warbles swift and clear, A sudden sense of shelter And friendliness and cheer . . . A sense of tinkling glasses, Of love and laughter and light -- The piano stops, and the window Stares blank out into the night. The blind goes out, and I wander To the old, unfriendly sea, The lonelier for the memory That walks like a ghost with me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...REINFORCEMENTS by MARIANNE MOORE A SUMMER'S NIGHT by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR JEALOUS by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD by ROBERT BURNS SONNET ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN JANUARY by ROBERT BURNS HEIRS OF TWILIGHT by HELENE M. BUTEAU WHY DISTRICT SCHOOL USED TO KEEP IN VERMONT by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY |