Thee, meekest power! I love to meet,
As oft with even solitary pace

The scattered abbey's hallowed rounds I trace
And listen to the echoings of my feet.

Or on the half-demolished tomb,

Whose warning texts anticipate my doom,
Mark the clear orb of night

Cast through the storying glass a faintly-varied light.

Nor will I not in some more gloomy hour
Invoke with fearless awe thine holier power,
Wandering beneath the sainted pile

When the blast moans along the darksome aisle,
And clattering patters all around

The midnight shower with dreary sound.
But sweeter 'tis to wander wild
By melancholy dreams beguiled,
While the summer moon's pale ray
Faintly guides me on my way
To the lone romantic glen
Far from all the haunts of men,
Where no noise of uproar rude
Breaks the calm of solitude.
But soothing silence sleeps in all,
Save the neighbouring waterfall,
Whose hoarse waters falling near
Load with hollow sounds the ear,
And with down-dasht torrent white
Gleam hoary through the shades of night.
Thus wandering silent on and slow
I'll nurse reflection's sacred woe,
And muse upon the perisht day
When hope would weave her visions gay,
Ere Fancy chilled by adverse fate
Left sad Reality my mate.

O Contemplation! when to memory's eyes
The visions of the long-past days arise,
Thy holy power imparts the best relief,
And the calmed spirit loves the joy of grief.

TO HORROR.

DARK Horror, hear my call!

Stern genius hear from thy retreat
On some old sepulchre's moss-cankered seat
Beneath the abbey's ivied wall

That trembles o'er its shade;
Where wrapt in midnight gloom, alone,
Thou lovest to lie and hear

The roar of waters near,
And listen to the deep dull groan

Of some perturbed sprite

Borne fitful on the heavy gales of night.

Or whether o'er some wide waste hill
Thou markest the traveller stray,
Bewildered on his lonely way.
When, loud and keen and chill,
The evening winds of winter blow,
Drifting deep the dismal snow.

Or if thou followest now on Greenland's shore,
With all thy terrors, on the lonely way
Of some wrecked mariner, when to the roar
Of herded bears, the floating ice-hills round
Pour their deep echoing sound,

And by the dim drear boreal light
Givest half his dangers to the wretch's sight.

Or if thy fury form,

When o'er the midnight deep

The dark-winged tempests sweep,

Watches from some high cliff the increasing storm,
Listening with strange delight,

As the black billows to the thunder rave
When by the lightning's light

Thou seest the tall ship sink beneath the wave.

Dark Horror! bear me where the field of fight
Scatters contagion on the tainted gale,
When to the moon's faint beam,