observing the changing colours of the evening
clouds, and the gloom of twilight draw over the sea, till the white tops
of billows, riding towards the shore, could scarcely be discerned amidst
the darkened waters. The lines, engraved by Valancourt on this tower,
she frequently repeated with melancholy enthusiasm, and then would
endeavour to check the recollections and the grief they occasioned, and
to turn her thoughts to indifferent subjects.

One evening, having wandered with her lute to this her favourite spot,
she entered the ruined tower, and ascended a winding staircase, that
led to a small chamber, which was less decayed than the rest of the
building, and whence she had often gazed, with admiration, on the wide
prospect of sea and land, that extended below. The sun was now setting
on that tract of the Pyrenees, which divided Languedoc from Rousillon,
and, placing herself opposite to a small grated window, which, like the
wood-tops beneath, and the waves lower still, gleamed with the red glow
of the west, she touched the chords of her lute in solemn symphony, and
then accompanied it with her voice, in one of the simple and affecting
airs, to which, in happier days, Valancourt had often listened in
rapture, and which she now adapted to the following lines.

TO MELANCHOLY

Spirit of love and sorrow--hail!
Thy solemn voice from far I hear,
Mingling with ev'ning's dying gale:
Hail, with this sadly-pleasing tear!

O! at this still, this lonely hour,
Thine own sweet hour of closing day,
Awake thy lute, whose charmful pow'r
Shall call up Fancy to obey:

To paint the wild romantic dream,
That meets the poet's musing eye,
As, on the bank of shadowy stream,
He breathes to her the fervid sigh.

O lonely spirit! let thy song
Lead me through all thy sacred haunt;
The minister's moon-light aisles along,
Where spectres raise the midnight chaunt.

I hear their dirges faintly swell!
Then, sink at once in silence drear,
While, from the pillar'd cloister's cell,
Dimly their gliding forms appear!

Lead where the pine-woods wave on high,
Whose pathless sod is darkly seen,
As the cold moon, with trembling eye,
Darts her long beams the leaves between.

Lead to the mountain's dusky head,
Where, far below, in shade profound,
Wide forests, plains and hamlets spread,
And sad the chimes of vesper sound,

Or guide me, where the dashing oar
Just breaks the stillness of the vale,
As slow it