CREAK, ye black forests! and ye mournful forms
That flit like hooded monks across the bare
And desolate wilderness, urge through the air
Your cloudy legions, O ye gloomy storms!
Dark ministers of Night! I hear the roll
Of rising winds, and in the lonely vale
The melancholy Autumn breathes her wail,
Yet pleasant is her sadness to my soul.
See! where the Old Year bears her in his arms:
The pale CORDELIA and the trembling LEAR:
Will he not strew with heather her sad bier,
And keep her safe from Winter's rude alarms?
'Vex not his ghost!' his life will soon be o'er,
The 'sweet, low voice' he loved he hears no more.