Nights of music

Nights of music, nights of loving,

Lost too soon, remembered long.

When we went by moonlight roving,

Hearts all love and lips all song.

When this faithful lute recorded

All my spirit felt to thee;

And that smile the song rewarded,

Worth whole years of fame to me!

Nights of song, and nights of splendor,

Fill'd with joys too sweet to last.

Joys that, like the starlight tender,

While they shone, no shadow cast,

Thought all other happy hours

From my fading mem'ry fly,

OF the starlight of those bowers,

Not a beam, a leaf shall die!