Courting dull melancholy’s devious shade;

While misery and grief usurp’d my mind,

And dark despair my every thought pourtray’d.

The neighbouring dells responsive to each moan,

Vibrate each sigh and echo’d groan for groan:

Wrapt in affliction, stranger to repose,

In solitude’s dark cell wept o’er my woes;

’Till lovely Clara’s heaven-born lyre

With melting softness and Apollo’s fire

Expell’d the ebon shades of darken’d night,