Transcript of 'Address to Melancholy' by Mary Rawes

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Spirit of darkness! From yon lonely shade

Where fade the virgin roses of the spring,

Spirit of darkness, hear thy fav’rite maid

To Sorrow’s harp her wildest anthem sing.

Ah! How has loved despoil’d my earliest bloom,

And flung my charms as to the wintry wind,

Ah! How has love hung o’er they trophied tomb,

The spoils of genius, and the wreck of mind.

High rides the moon the silent heaven along,

Thick fall the dews of midnight o’er the ground,

Soft steals the Lover, when the morning song,

Of waken’d warbles thro the woods resound.

Then I, with thee, my solem vigils keep,

And at thine alter take my lonely stand,

Again my lyre, unstrung, I sadly sweep,

While love leads up the dance, with harp in hand.

High o’er woodlands, Hope’s gay meteors shone,

And thronging thousands bless’d the ardent ray,

I turned, but found Despair on his wild roam,

And with the demon bent my hither way.

Soft o’er the vales she blew her bugle horn,

Oh! where Maria, whether dost thou stray?

Return, thou false maid, to th’ echoing sound,

I flew, nor heeded the sweet syren’s lay.

Hail, melancholy! to yon lonely towers,

I turn, and hail they time-warn turrets mine,

Where flourished fair the night-shade’s deadly flowers,

And dark and blue, the wasting tapers shine.

There, O my Edwin! does they spirit greet,

In fancy’s maze thy lov’d and wandering maid,

Soft thro’ the bower thy shade Maria meets,

And leads thee onward thro’ the myrtle glade.

O, come with me, and hear the song of eve,

Far sweeter, far, than the loud shout of morn,

List to the pantings of the whispering breeze,

Dwell on past woes, or sorrows yet unborn.

We have a tale, and song may charm these shades,

Which cannot rouse to life Maria’s mind,

Where sorrow’s captives had thy once lov’d maid,

To joy a stranger, and to grief resign’d.

Edwin, farewell! Go, take my last adieu,

Ah! Could my bursting bosom tell thee more,

Here, parted here, from love, from life, and you,

I pour my song as on a foreign shore.

But stay, rash youth, the sun has climb’d on high,

The night is past, the shadows all are gone,

For lost Maria breathe th’ eternal sigh,

And waft thy sorrows to the gales of morn.

[Archival reference: RET/6/19/1/135]