And I blessed his glowing face, envying the merry little child,
As he shouted with the ecstasy of being, clapping his hands for joyfulness:
For I said, Surely, O Life, thy name is happiness and hope,
Thy days are bright, thy flowers are sweet, and pleasure the condition of thy gift.
A youth was walking in the moonlight, walking not alone,
For a fair and gentle maid leant on his trembling arm:
Their whispering was still of beauty, and the light of love was in their eyes,
Their twin young hearts had not a thought unvowed to love and beauty;
The stars and the sleeping world, and the guardian eye of God,
The murmur of the distant waterfall, and nightingales warbling in the thicket,