Silvery moonlight, clear and bright,
Shining down on our earth to-night,
Soft as the touch of an angels' wing,
Tender, beautiful, holy thing!

Seeking the glen where the cool waters flow—
Lighting the bank where the violets grow;
Gilding the crest of the foamy rill;
Falling in silence upon the hill;
Piercing the depths of the forest glade,
Glancing down thro' the leafy shade,
Till the loneliest haunts of the wild wood seem
To rejoice in the light of thy radiant beam!

Glistening out on the trackless deep,
Where the spirits of ocean their revels keep;
Lighting the path over the billows' foam,
As the mermaid glides from her gem-built home,
And the peri's song o'er the heaving sea
Sounds in fitful, plaintive melody!

Pouring down on the mountain pass,
Where, tripping light o'er the dewy grass,
The fairies join in their wild, weird dance,
And the mystic forms thro' the moonbeams glance,
While far and wide on the wind is borne
Through answering echoes, the elfin horn.

Flooding with glory the prairie's breast,
Till, all transformed, in the radiance drest,
The shanty, south of the poplar wood,
Seems a sylvian lodge in the solitude;
And the settler dreams, with a moistened eye,
Of the moonlights and loves of the times gone by.

Gleaming fair on the city towers
Where the clocks, thro' the night, chime the passing hours,
On the city's heart that no longer beats,
With the ebb and flow of its noisy streets,
And their living pulse-throbs that come and go,
To the smile of joy, and the throb of woe!

Smiling down from a cloudless sky,
On the village homes, that all peaceful lie;
Where simple hearts, in a happier life,
Know nought of the city's cares and strife,—
The hardy sons of honest toil,
Pensioners free of their parent soil!

To hopeful hearts in the morn of youth,
The dream-land of Love, and the type of Truth,
Where the future shows 'neath its veil of light
An Eden of blissful, untold delight

In the stern, hard struggle of manhood's days
When tired feet stumble o'er life's rough ways,
And in age's twilight of shadowy gloom,
A dream of the rest that is yet to come.

Shine on, silvery moonlight, shine!
Gladden earth with your beams benign;
On restless ocean, on tranquil lake,
Through forest alleys, by fern and brake;
By quiet village, and crowded town,
By mountain, prairie, and breezy down;
O'er sights of gladness, o'er scenes of woe,
Let the tender light of thy pure beams glow,
And the weary and hopeless shall bless your light.
And the child of joy have more pure delight.