TO MELANCHOLY. Ann Radcliffe (née Ward) 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. Radcliffe, Ann Ward, 1764-1823. The Poems of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. London printed by and for J. Smith, Princes Street 1816 pp. 93-95. 118p. [Radcliffe's poems only, pp. 1-95]

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TO MELANCHOLY . 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 .