Child of the melancholy song! O yet that tender strain prolong! Her lengthen'd shade, when Ev'ning flings, From mountain-cliffs and forest's green, And sailing slow on silent wings Along the glimm'ring West is seen; I love o'er pathless hills to stray, Or trace the winding vale remote, And pause, sweet Bird! to hear thy lay While moon-beams on the thin clouds float, Till o'er the mountain's dewy head Pale Midnight steals to wake the dead. Far through the Heav'ns' ætherial blue, Wafted on Spring's light airs you come, With blooms, and flow'rs, and genial dew, From climes where Summer joys to roam, O! welcome to your long-lost home! "Child of the melancholy song!" Who lov'st the lonely woodland-glade To mourn, unseen, the boughs among, When Twilight spreads her pensive shade, Again thy dulcet voice I hail! O! pour again the liquid note That dies upon the ev'ning gale! For Fancy loves the kindred tone; Her griefs the plaintive accents own. She loves to hear thy music float At solemn Midnight's stillest hour, And think on friends for ever lost, On joys by disappointment crost, And weep anew Love's charmful pow'r! Then Memory wakes the magic smile, Th' impassion'd voice, the melting eye, That won't the trusting heart beguile, And @3wakes again@1 the hopeless sigh! Her skill the glowing tints revive Of scenes that Time had bade decay; She bids the soften'd Passions live— The Passions urge again their sway. Yet o'er the long-regretted scene Thy song the grace of sorrow throws; A melancholy charm serene, More rare than all that mirth bestows. Then hail, sweet Bird! and hail thy pensive tear! To Taste, to Fancy, and to Virtue, dear! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOME by LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 68 by PHILIP SIDNEY THE WASTE PLACES by JAMES STEPHENS THE EAGLE; A FRAGMENT by ALFRED TENNYSON LEGEND by JOHN VAN ALSTYN WEAVER A DREAM, OR THE TYPE OF THE RISING SUN by JEAN ADAMS |