To Melancholy Lyrics

by Ann Radcliffe

Spirit of love and sorrow---hail!
Thy solemn voice from far I hear,
Mingling with ev'ning's dying gale:
Hail, with this sadly-pleasing tear!
O! at this still, this lonely hour,
Thine own sweet hour of closing day,
Awake thy lute, whose charmful pow'r
Shall call up Fancy to obey.

To paint the wild romantic dream,
That meets the poet's musing eye,
As on the bank of shadowy stream,
He breathes to her the fervid sigh.

O lonely spirit! let thy song
Lead me through all thy sacred haunt;
The minster's moon-light aisles along,
Where spectres raise the midnight chaunt.
I hear their dirges faintly swell!
Then, sink at once in silence drear;
While, from the pillar'd cloister's cell,
Dimly their gliding forms appear!

Lead where the pine-woods wave on high,
Whose pathless sod is darkly seen,
As the cold moon, with trembling eye,
Darts her long beams the leaves between.

Lead to the mountain's dusky head,
Where, far below, in shade profound,
Wide forests, plains, and hamlets, spread,
And sad the chimes of vesper sound.
Or guide me where the dashing oar
Just breaks the stillness of the vale;
As slow it tracks the winding shore,
To meet the ocean's distant sail:

To pebbly banks, that Neptune laves,
With measur'd surges, loud and deep;
Where the dark cliff bends o'er the waves,
And wild the winds of autumn sweep:

There pause at midnight's spectred hour,
And list the long-resounding gale:
And catch the fleeting moon-light's pow'r,
O'er foaming seas and distant sail."