I must confess, if such there be who never felt

the divine abstraction, I envy them not their insensibility. For my own part, it is from the indulgence of this soothing power that I derive the most exquisite of gratifications. At the calm hour of moonlight, and all the sublime serenity of the dead stillness of the night; or when the howling storm rages in the heavens, the rain pelts on my roof, and the winds whistle through the crannies of my apartment, I feel the divine mood of melancholy upon me. I imagine myself placed upon an eminence above the crowds who pant below in the dusty tracks of wealth and honour. The black catalogue of crime and of vice, the sad tissue of wretchedness and woe, pass in review before me; and I look down upon man with an eye of pity and commiseration.

Though the scenes which I survey be mournful, and the ideas they excite equally sombre; though the tears gush as I contemplate them, and my heart feels heavy with the sorrowful emotions which they inspire, yet they are not unaccompanied with sensations of the purest and most ecstatic bliss.

It is to the spectator alone that Melancholy is forbidding; in herself she is soft and interesting, and capable of affording pure and unalloyed delight. Ask the lover why he muses by the side of the purling brook, or plunges into the deep gloom of the forest? Ask the unfortunate why he seeks the still shades of solitude? or the man who feels the pangs of disappointed ambition, why he retires into the silent shades of seclusion? and he will tell you that he derives a

pleasure therefrom which nothing else can impart. It is the delight of Melancholy.

As these poems were the amusements of those hours of relaxation when the mind recedes from the vexations of business, and sinks into itself for a moment of solitary ease, I trust they will be looked upon more as hasty sketches, (which, indeed, they are,) rather than studied efforts of literary leisure.

SUTHERLAND HOUSE, EALING,

October 1, 1847.

THE

PLEASURES OF MELANCHOLY.

PART I.

"There is a mood

I sing not to the vacant and the young-
There is a kindly mood of melancholy

That wings the soul, and points her to the skies."

DYER.

ETERNAL GOD! 'tis by Thy power I stand;
'Tis by Thy mercy, by Thy guiding hand,
That I, Thy servant, live; let grace divine,
Unworthy as I am, within me shine,

And bless, oh bless these fleeting hours of mine:

Let holy love through all my senses flow,

Let faith, and truth, and loving mercy glow;

B

Let my warm accents bear the pilgrim's part,
And teach dull earth the truth, nor fear to start
The bitter pang from man's unwilling heart.
'Tis Thine, oh heavenly wisdom, Thine to give
Grace in Thy bounty, and bid sinners live;
"Tis Thine the stubborn, stony heart to break,
And bid it live and love for Jesus' sake,
And bid its powers and faculties expand,
Kindled and guided by Thy fostering hand,
And evermore to tell to sinners round,

The joyful tidings, the glad, wakeful sound,
The blissful hope that he himself hath found;
And thus to follow, with a lowly mind,

The Saviour of the world, and thus to bind
The hearts of thousands to a willing love,

To spend their lives to Him, their Lord, above.

Is it a virtue to desire to preach

Knowledge as worthy of the gods to teach?