Sadness and Melancholy

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too!

What do I care that you are good? Be beautiful! and be sad! 11

Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

Ah, why should tears the pale cheek fret For aught that waneth here below. Let go, let go!

How sad and bad and mad it was— But then, how it was sweet!

The most despairing songs are the loveliest of all, I know immortal ones composed only of tears.

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispèd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere: It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year.

I am the somber one, the unconsoled widower, The Prince of Aquitaine whose tower was destroyed. 2 My only star is dead, and my star-studded lute Wears the black sun of Melancholy.

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.

Child, you are like a flower, So sweet and pure and fair. I look at you, and sadness Touches me with a prayer.

I will not mourn, although my heart is torn, Oh, love forever lost! I will not mourn.

I cannot tell why this imagined Despair has fallen upon me; The ghost of an ancient legend That will not let me be.

O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing!

How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty’s self.

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star, Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone.

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine.

To make delicious moan Upon the midnight hours.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure; Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure.

When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead— When the cloud is scattered The rainbow’s glory is shed.

Alas! that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal!