ODE TO MELANCHOLY. Richard Shepherd Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T116245 1122 K093079.001 Pearch, G. A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands. Vol. I. [The second edition]. London printed for G. Pearch 1770 pp. 289-291. 4v. ; 8⁰.

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ODE TO MELANCHOLY . BY THE SAME . REMOTE from those enchanting bowers , Where dance the nimble-footed hours , Where revels frantic Folly ; To thee I bring the tribute tear , Visits the muse thy mansions drear , Heart-searching Melancholy . By thee inspir'd , by Fancy led , Thy hallowed ground I seem to tread , Where o'er the joyless plain The aether sheds its blackest hue , And here and there a lonely yew Marks Melancholy's reign . Where chearful gales forget to blow , Pellucid currents cease to flow , The cloud-capt mountain's height All avenues of the dreary way Secures from each pervading ray Of soul-enlivening light . Where Grief sad social solace seeks , The rose has fled her meagre cheeks , And hollow is her eye ; Care on her lap reclines his head , Whilst hovering round the restless bed The wing'd chimeras fly . Rack'd with ideal tortures Spleen A thousand fiends unknown , unseen , With shadowy faulchions scare ; This rends her breast , that goads her sides , And every hag of Fancy rides The phantom thro' the air . Hark , softly stealing on the ear The hollow sigh , the dropping tear , The music of Despair ; Not lovers sorrow-mocking sighs , Or mimic Grief that melts the eyes Of youthful widowed fair . Sorrows that orphan bosoms pierce , Pour'd o'er a tender parent's hearse , Snatch'd by unpitying fate ; No fostering hand's kind solace nigh , Each summer friend with wayward eye Surveys their helpless state . Thus the vague group of vernal flies , While Titan gilds the cloudless skies , Sport in the glistening ray : The spiendid scene once overcast By lowering cloud , or adverse blast , Each insect veers away . When Pleasure's madding tide o'erswells The rapt breast , to those doleful cells Of misery let me stray ; There shall thought-fostering Solitude , Whilst no fantastic joys intrude , Each devious step recal to Virtue's rugged way .