Sadness and Melancholy

Ah woe is me! Winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year.

I weep for Adonais [John Keats] 4 —he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ’Tis that I may not weep.

With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.

But hushed be every thought that springs From out the bitterness of things.

Ah, where will I find Flowers, come winter, And where the sunshine And shade of the earth? Walls stand cold And speechless, in the wind The weathervanes creak. 1

In durance vile here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.

Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure Thrill the deepest notes of woe.

Ye banks and braes o’ bonny Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary fu’ o’ care! Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn! Thou minds me o’ departed joys, Departed never to return.

My peace is gone, My heart is heavy. 12

Who ne’er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne’er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed has sate, He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers. 3

O Solitude! where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face?

What peaceful hours I once enjoy’d! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.

When lovely woman stoops to folly, 5 And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy? What art can wash her guilt away?

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po.

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A youth to fortune and to fame unknown. Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark’d him for her own.

Now warm in love, now with’ring in my bloom, Lost in a convent’s solitary gloom!

Oh name forever sad! forever dear! Still breath’d in sighs, still usher’d with a tear.

Sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d again.

Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, And moon-struck madness.

Thrice he assay’d, and thrice, in spite of scorn, Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.

Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth.

Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy!