There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe’er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

But the stillness has a beauty of its own, And trees and streams are not always there, And when the voices of the wind have blown, There something passes all the difference that we share.

Now I am just a drooping take, My own confinement keeps me still. With nature I did once take. But now I am alone, like sun and a hill.

• Robert Frost