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A true delight, but most in solemn dirge,

For melancholy was his common mood,

Though sometimes he was in an altitude

Of such hilarity, that it did verge

Upon the wildness of a mind unsound.

Indeed, the whisper passed, he was insane,

Since only one with shattered reason could

Half of his fortune spend for such a thing:

To hear a set of golden churchbells ring,

And none of his few friends quite understood

His pleasure in a funeral refrain.

He loved to walk ’mongst tombs and ancient graves,

And read the epitaphs on crumbling stones,

Or muse beside some gloomy cypress tree,

While list’ning to a mournful melody,

Mark how the harmony of all the tones

Did vanish far away o’er sunlit waves.

He was a seeker after harmony,

Such harmony in which all life shall blend,

In perfect peace and concord, this he heard

Expressed in those deep tones which moved and stirred

His brooding mind, and seemed an answer lend

To all its questions of life’s destiny.

Unhappiness had marred his early life;