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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

south

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

street,

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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