The Valley of Melancholia

The sky is charged; a veil of frozen dew
enshrouds the earth; the distant hilltops wear
the evening’s pall of sullen, sable hue.
Still is the wind. With cries that fill the air,
the haunted voices of the valley share
their secrets awful and enthralling,
of nameless sins and tales appalling,
at which the trees would shudder, the mountains tremble –
with madness laughing is the moon,
conspiring stars bestrew the noon;
something of eeriness pervades
the raw and rugged rocks, the groves and glades.

Who wonders through this valley desolate?
Who, straying late, did Sorrow once accost,
and lead them here? Who came to contemplate
life’s mysteries, whose searching hearts had crossed
into this land of doubt – but the path lost?
Up to the heavens they gaze – the vast
and lightless void, that us has cast
on inhospitable seas – they gaze with restless wonder –
but to their burning questions why –
it only echoes in reply;
for them no dogma bears a gleam
of truth that eases life’s unquiet dream.

What spirits tread here, delicate and keen?
Spirits that beauty sought with eager eye –
who, finding it furled around a passing scene –
felt ecstasy – twined with a wistful sigh –
as naught the ebbing tides of time defy.
What piper there – whose plaintive sound
the valley echoes far around,
pipes of passing life and love and innocence?
What rhymer in the meadow sings,
sings of the passing of all things,
notes sad as solitary winter bird,
that through the velvet twilight drift unheard?

I knew a soul, on simple pleasures grown,
who of the springs of nature asked not how,
nor why, but trusted all he saw; unknown
lay tangled woods of knowledge near – his brow
unclouded still in youth’s long dawn. But now
that unrefined and artless faith
has vanished like a fleeting wraith;
exiled from innocence, now sibling of the shadows,
his soul seemed like a hollow shell
where oceans deep with anguish swell;
in suffering’s solitude he read
departed minds, and moved among the dead.

A yawning, overflowing emptiness
sighed through the valley’s narrow, winding ways.
Phantasmal howlings pierced the wilderness –
and beating wings of birds unseen would daze
his weary senses, shattering the haze.
Sometimes despondency became
half-pleasing – soft as candle flame –
at other times it cold and comfortless would grow,
and gleamed as hard and real as bars,
while hope lay distant as the stars;
sometimes stampeding herds of thunder
with sudden roll would cleave his mind asunder.

When nightfall in the valley would arrive,
he rested deep within its forests dim;
sleepless he saw its shadows come alive –
the puppets of the night stood tall and grim,
whose mocking voices would encircle him –
yet though this blackness round him crept,
still hope a tireless vigil kept.
One day he climbed the valley’s tenebrous crags and steeps,
and saw a rainbow subtly spun,
caught momentarily by the Sun,
within a mist clothed waterfall,
dispersing colours myriad on all.

Since straying in valley long ago,
two voices call him – voices worlds apart;
one from the rainbow – hope’s eternal glow,
the other – deep despair’s untruthful dart.
Both equal reign within his tender heart,
as how the mind contains such scope
for misery – yet equal hope;
and though the voices of the valley call no more –
and though, when downcast, he can find
that rainbow gleaming in his mind –
still, he can sometimes dimly hear
the frantic beating wings of madness growing near.