The Poetical Works of the late Mrs Mary Robinson ::

O! Melancholy! parent of Despair,
Whose pitying pow'r, whose poison fell
Creeps thro' the sickening brain, the pallid cheek,
The languid downcast eye, the listless frame,
The desolating toil of ceaseless thought,
Proclaim thy dark and fateful hour at hand!
Absorb'd amidst surrounding revelry,
Thy child, O! ruthless Melancholy! steals;
Unheeding the loud laugh, the wanton jest,
The sign mysterious, or the whisper low
Of shrewd, sharp-sighted, prying observation.
Nor magic charm, nor herb medicinal,
Nor all the treasur'd lore of studious skill,
Can draw thy victim from the numbing spell
That fascinates and chains her yielding soul!

Seldom she speaks: if question'd, she returns
The answer incoherent and unapt,
Mark'd by the frequent pause and vacant eye.

Sometimes she weeps; but nature's niggard hand
Denies the copious show'r, sweet balmy fount,
That cools and vivifies the burning brain!
And now she starts! and now-and-then, by fits,
She looks aghast, trembles, and deeply sighs;
Then sinks into the torpid dream again.

She loathes the blooms of spring; the glowing hour
Of feast and minstrelsy, and playful mirth!
Her mind, each active faculty possess'd,
Resigns itself to ever-musing woe:
For her no orient beam adorns the sky:
No balmy wing ethereal through the shade
Flings the refreshing breeze; no limpid brook
Sparkles with noon-tide rays, reflected back
With ten-fold lustre from its glassy breast!
The change of season, and the varying hour,
Serve to make up the dull account of time,
But bring no interval of gleaming joy!
Or, if her sense can aught discriminate,
She ponders on the miseries of life;
The barren mountain, where the tott'ring hut
Rocks as the whirlwind sweeps its rushy roof,
And hurls it fathoms down the craggy steep!
The chamber, where the paly quiv'ring lamp
Shews the worn suff'rer on the bed of death!
For her the woodland nightingale attunes
His song nocturnal, unregarded—lost!

The sad, the sympathetic, plaintive strain,
O'er the dull ear of sorrow passes faint,
If not unheeded; or, if feeling wakes,
Recall'd by memory to long past woe,
Reflection glances o'er the page of time,
And marks its progress with a silent tear!

Pale Melancholy shuns the rural haunt,
Where peace, and joy, and revelry preside!
Bliss-breathing Health, that welcomes young desire,
Led on by smiling hope and blooming love,
Starts from her with'ring form, and steals away;
While apathy, with petrifying hand,
Spreads a dim shadow o'er each faded charm.

The twilight gloom amidst embow'ring woods
She courts, and bending o'er some wizard stream
That winds among the ever-mould'ring heaps,
Strew'd by the touch of time from antique tow'rs
And arches fretted with fantastic forms,
She sits, the pensive genius of the scene!
Around her cell attentive stillness reigns;
The breezes sleep; and o'er its pebbly bed
The shallow river bends its silent way;
Death seems to triumph o'er the breathing world,
Save where the bat from the dark ruin flits,
Cleaving the night-mist with his dusky wing.

Nor there alone presides the mournful maid;
She loves to stray, and ponder as she strays,
Along the dreary monumental pile;
Where, from the Gothic roof, with ivy bound,
The whistling wind descends, and through the aisle
Sweeps the long hoarded dust for ages heap'd
On the vain records of th' unconscious dead!

Oft, when the wintry moon o'ertops the hills,
In circling vapour wrapp'd, she wanders forth
O'er the bleak heath; list'ning the rising gale,
Or distant village bell, whose sound, once told,
Proclaims the witching hour. Then Fancy comes;
But in her train no lovely forms appear,
No blithesome groups, thridding the roseate wreath,
Or tripping in fantastic measures by;
No Sylvan pipe, no rude, yet dulcet note
Of mountain minstrelsy delights her ear;
But the shrill menace of the freezing blast,
(Thron'd on whose black and desolating wing
Disease and death hurl the destructive shaft)
Howls o'er her breast. Still dauntless, she proceeds;
The drizzly dew, the sharp and nipping gale,
Pass o'er her cheek unheeded. All alone
She contemplates the solitary scene,
While horror, madd'ning, conjures up an host
Of spectres gaunt; of chiefs, whose mould'ring bones

Have slept beneath the green-sod where they fell,
Till village legends scarcely say—they died!
Now from their prison-graves again they start,
Hurling the airy jav'lin on the foe;
And now they rush, in mighty legions, on;
Now from the length'ning columns fiercely brave;
And now the broken ranks disordered fly,
Pale as the silvery beam that marks their course;
And now the breathless heaps bestrew the plain,
While on their mangled limbs the batter'd shield
Gleams horrible; as through the indented steel
The life-stream gushes from the recent wound!
The groan of death fills up the dreadful pause;
Sad, and more sad, it echoes o'er the scene,
Till, oft repeated, the deep murmur dies!
The cherish'd poison, now more potent grown,
Riots o'er all the faculties at will;
Strong in conceit, with fascination fraught,
Painfully pleasing. As the fever burns
The consciousness of misery recedes;
Till, fill'd with horror, reason's barrier fails,
And frenzy triumphs o'er the infected brain!

Now the wan maniac hurries to the bourn
Whose sandy base the frequent surges lave;
Dishevell'd! wild! and fearless of the storm!
There, o'er the dreadful summit she inclines,

While darkness wraps the liquid world below:
She listens, with attention mute, to catch
The mournful murmurs of the distant main;
The tempest wakes; the rous'd and angry waves
Rise in the mighty elemental strife,
Urg'd by the howling blast, whose forceful breath
Repels them, foaming, to their native deep.
Amidst the din terrific, the doom'd bark
Strikes on the rocky shore. The wretched crew
Fill the dread chorus with the groans of death,
Till the tir'd winds moan o'er the shattered wreck,
That sinks amidst the fathomless abyss!

Rous'd from her dream, pale Melancholy starts;
Shrieks louder than the blast! but shrieks unheard;
Then plunges headlong from the dizzy steep,
And, in the bosom of despair, expires!

Now the faint dawn gleams o'er the eastern cliff;
The smooth sea brightens with the coming ray,
And not a vestige of the storm is seen!

University of Virginia Library

THE PROGRESS OF MELANCHOLY,

A FRAGMENT.