What though beneath thy gloom the sorceress train, Far in obscured haunt of Lapland moors,
With rhymes uncouth the bloody caldron bless; Though Murder wan beneath thy shrouding shade Summons her slow-eyed votaries to devise Of secret slaughter, while by one blue lamp In hideous conference sit the listening band, And start at each low wind, or wakeful sound : What though thy stay the pilgrim curseth oft, As all benighted in Arabian wastes
He hears the wilderness around him howl With roaming monsters, while on his hoar head The black-descending tempest ceaseless beats? Yet more delightful to my pensive mind Is thy return, than blooming Morn's approach, Ev'n then, in youthful pride of opening May, When from the portals of the saffron east She sheds fresh roses, and ambrosial dews. Yet not ungrateful is the morn's approach, When dropping wet she comes, and clad in clouds, While through the damp air scowls the louring
Blackening the landscape's face, that grove and hill In formless vapours undistinguish'd swim : The afflicted songsters of the sadden'd groves Hail not the sullen gloom; the waving elms, That, hoar through time, and ranged in thick array, Enclose with stately row some rural hall, Are mute, nor echo with the clamours hoarse Of rooks, rejoicing on their airy boughs; While to the shed the dripping poultry crowd, A mournful train: secure the village-hind
Hangs o'er the crackling blaze, nor tempts the storm; Fix'd in the unfinish'd furrow rests the plough:
Rings not the high wood with enliven'd shouts Of early hunter: all is silence drear;
And deepest sadness wraps the face of things. Through Pope's soft song though all the Graces And happiest art adorn his Attic page;
[breathe, Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow, As at the root of mossy trunk reclined, In magic Spenser's wildly-warbled song I see deserted Una wander wide
Through wasteful solitudes, and lurid heaths, Weary, forlorn; than when the fated fair Upon the bosom bright of silver Thames Launches in all the lustre of brocade, Amid the splendours of the laughing sun. The gay description palls upon the sense, And coldly strikes the mind with feeble bliss.
Ye youths of Albion's beauty-blooming isle, Whose brows have worn the wreath of luckless love, Is there a pleasure like the pensive mood, Whose magic wont to soothe your soften'd souls ? O tell how rapturous the joy, to melt
To Melody's assuasive voice; to bend
The uncertain step along the midnight mead, And pour your sorrows to the pitying moon, By many a slow trill from the bird of woe Oft interrupted; in embowering woods By darksome brook to muse, and there forget The solemn dulness of the tedious world, While Fancy grasps the visionary fair: And now no more the abstracted ear attends The water's murmuring lapse, the entranced eye Pierces no longer through the extended rows Of thick-ranged trees; till haply from the depth The woodman's stroke, or distant tinkling team,
Or heifers rustling through the brake, alarms The illuded sense, and mars the golden dream. These are delights that absence drear has made Familiar to my soul, e'er since the form
Of young Sapphira, beauteous as the Spring, When from her violet-woven couch awaked By frolic Zephyr's hand, her tender cheek Graceful she lifts, and blushing, from her bower Issues to clothe in gladsome-glistering green The genial globe, first met my dazzled sight. These are delights unknown to minds profane, And which alone the pensive soul can taste.
The taper'd choir, at the late hour of prayer, Oft let me tread, while to the according voice The many-sounding organ peals on high, The clear slow-dittied chant, or varied hymn, Till all my soul is bathed in ecstasies, And lapp'd in Paradise. Or let me sit Far in sequester'd aisles of the deep dome, There lonesome listen to the sacred sounds, Which, as they lengthen through the gothic vaults, In hollow murmurs reach my ravish'd ear. Nor when the lamps, expiring, yield to night, And solitude returns, would I forsake
The solemn mansion; but attentive mark The due clock swinging slow with sweepy sway, Measuring Time's flight with momentary sound. Nor let me fail to cultivate my mind With the soft thrillings of the tragic Muse, Divine Melpomene, sweet Pity's nurse, Queen of the stately step, and flowing pall. Now let Monimia mourn with streaming eyes Her joys incestuous, and polluted love: Now let soft Juliet in the gaping tomb
Print the last kiss on her true Romeo's lips, His lips yet reeking from the deadly draught; Or Jaffier kneel for one forgiving look. Nor seldom let the Moor on Desdemone Pour the misguided threats of jealous rage. By soft degrees the manly torrent steals From my swoln eyes; and at a brother's woe My big heart melts in sympathizing tears.
What are the splendours of the gaudy court, Its tinsel trappings, and its pageant pomps? To me far happier seems the banish'd lord, Amid Siberia's unrejoicing wilds,
Who pines all lonesome, in the chambers hoar Of some high castle shut, whose windows dim In distant ken discover trackless plains, Where Winter ever whirls his icy car; While still repeated objects of his view, The gloomy battlements, and ivied spires, That crown the solitary dome, arise; While from the topmost turret the slow clock, Far heard along the inhospitable wastes, With sad-returning chime awakes new grief; Ev'n he far happier seems than is the proud, The potent satrap, whom he left behind 'Mid Moscow's golden palaces, to drown In ease and luxury the laughing hours.
Illustrious objects strike the gazer's mind With feeble bliss, and but allure the sight, Nor rouse with impulse quick the unfeeling heart. Thus seen by shepherds from Hymettus' brow, What dædal landscapes smile! here palmy groves, Resounding once with Plato's voice, arise, Amid whose umbrage green her silver head The unfading olive lifts; here vine-clad hills Lay forth their purple store, and sunny vales
In prospect vast their level laps expand, Amid whose beauties glistering Athens towers. Though through the blissful scenes Ilissus roll His sage-inspiring flood, whose winding marge The thick-wove laurel shades; though roseate Morn Pour all her splendours on the empurpled scene; Yet feels the hoary hermit truer joys,
As from the cliff, that o'er his cavern hangs, He views the piles of fallen Persepolis
In deep arrangement hide the darksome plain. Unbounded waste! the mouldering obelisk Here, like a blasted oak, ascends the clouds; Here Parian domes their vaulted halls disclose, Horrid with thorn, where lurks the unpitying thief, Whence flits the twilight-loving bat at eve, And the deaf adder wreathes her spotted train, The dwellings once of elegance and art.
Here temples rise, amid whose hallow'd bounds Spires the black pine, while through the naked
Once haunt of tradeful merchants, springs the grass: Here columns heap'd on prostrate columns, torn From their firm base, increase the mouldering mass. Far as the sight can pierce, appear the spoils Of sunk magnificence! a blended scene Of moles, fanes, arches, domes, and palaces, Where, with his brother Horror, Ruin sits.
O come then, Melancholy, queen of thought! O come with saintly look, and steadfast step, From forth thy cave embower'd with mournful yew, Where ever to the curfew's solemn sound Listening thou sitt'st, and with thy cypress bind Thy votary's hair, and seal him for thy son. But never let Euphrosyne beguile
With toys of wanton mirth my fixed mind,
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