The Mysteries of Udolpho

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 minister'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.

The soft tranquillity of the scene below, where the evening breeze

scarcely curled the water, or swelled the passing sail, that caught the

last gleam of the sun, and where, now and then, a dipping oar was all

that disturbed the trembling radiance, conspired with the tender melody

of her lute to lull her mind into a state of gentle sadness, and she

sung the mournful songs of past times, till the remembrances they

awakened were too powerful for her heart, her tears fell upon the

lute, over which she drooped, and her voice trembled, and was unable to

proceed.

Though the sun had now sunk behind the mountains, and even his reflected

light was fading from their highest points, Emily did not leave the

watch-tower, but continued to indulge her melancholy reverie, till a

footstep, at a little distance, startled her, and, on looking through

the grate, she observed a person walking below, whom, however, soon

perceiving to be Mons. Bonnac, she returned to the quiet thoughtfulness

his step had interrupted. After some time, she again struck her lute,

and sung her favourite air; but again a step disturbed her, and, as she

paused to listen, she heard it ascending the stair-case of the tower.