Moonlight North and South
Love, we have heard together
The North Sea sing his tune,
And felt the wind’s wild feather
Brush past our cheeks at noon,
And seen the cloudy weather
Made wondrous with the moon.
Where loveliness is rarest,
’Tis also prized the most:
The moonlight shone her fairest
Along that level coast
Where sands and dunes the barest,
Of beauty seldom boast,
Far from that bleak and rude land
An exile I remain
Fixed in a fair and good land,
A valley and a plain
Rich in fat fields and woodland,
And watered well with rain.
Last night the full moon’s splendour
Shone down on Taunton Dene,
And pasture fresh and tender,
And coppice dusky green,
The heavenly light did render
In one enchanted scene,
One fair unearthly vision.
Yet soon mine eyes were cloyed,
And found those fields Elysian
Too rich to be enjoyed.
Or was it our division
Made all my pleasure void?
Across the window glasses
The curtain then I drew,
And, as a sea-bird passes,
In sleep my spirit flew
To grey and windswept grasses
And moonlit sands—and you.
