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DESPAIR, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh! Lead me to some solitary gloom
Last Line: And to the grave's dark solitude retire.


Oh! lead me to some solitary gloom,
Where no enlivening beams nor cheerful echoes come;
But silent all, and dusky let it be,
Remote and unfrequented but by me;
Mysterious, close, and sullen as that grief
Which leads me to its covert for relief.
Far from the busy world's detested noise,
Its wretched pleasures, and distracted joys;
Far from the jolly fools, who laugh and play,
And dance, and sing, impertinently gay,
Their short inestimable hours away;
Far from the studious follies of the great,
The tiresome farce of ceremonious state.
There, in a melting, solemn, dying strain,
Let me all day upon my lyre complain,
And wind up all its soft harmonious strings
To noble, serious, melancholy things.
And let no human foot but mine e'er trace
The close recesses of the sacred place:
Nor let a bird of cheerful note come near,
To whisper out his airy raptures here.
Only the pensive songstress of the grove --
Let her, by mine, her mournful notes improve;
While drooping winds among the branches sigh,
And sluggish waters heavily roll by.
Here to my fatal sorrows let me give
The short remaining hours I have to live.
Then with a sullen, deep-fetched groan expire,
And to the grave's dark solitude retire.





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