Melancholy

Stretch'd on a moulder'd Abbey's broadest wall,Where ruining ivies propt the ruins steep—Her folded arms wrapping her tatter'd pall,Had Melancholy mus'd herself to sleep.The fern was press'd beneath her hair,The dark green Adder's Tongue was there;And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak,The long lank leaf bow'd fluttering o'er her cheek.

That pallid cheek was flush'd: her eager lookBeam'd eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought,Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,And her bent forehead work'd with troubled thought.Strange was the dream that fill'd her soul,Nor did not whispering spirits rollA mystic tumult, and a fateful rhymeMixt with wild shapings of the unborn time.