Of thought and speech; speak low, and give up wholly
Thy spirit to mild-minded Melancholy;
This is the place. Through yonder poplar alley
Below, the blue-green river windeth slowly;
But in the middle of the sombre valley
The crispèd waters whisper musically,
And all the haunted place is dark and holy.
The nightingale, with long and low preamble,
Warbled from yonder knoll of solemn larches,
And in and out the woodbine's flowery arches
The summer midges wove their wanton gambol,
And all the white-stemmed pinewood slept above--
When in this valley first I told my love.




XXIX

=Sonnet=

[Published in _Friendships Offering: a Literary Album_ for 1832.
London: Smith and Elder.]

Me my own fate to lasting sorrow doometh:
Thy woes are birds of passage, transitory:
Thy spirit, circled with a living glory,
In summer still a summer joy resumeth.
Alone my hopeless melancholy gloometh,
Like a lone cypress, through the twilight hoary,