Classic Poem

Lead me, Sicilian maids, to haunted bowers,
While yon pale moon displays her faintest beams
O'er fading woodlands, and enchanted streams
Whose banks infect the breeze with poisonous flowers.
Ah, lead me where the barren mountain towers,
Where no sounds echo, but the night-owl's screams;
Where some lone spirit of the desert gleams,
And lurid horrors wing the fateful hours!
Now goaded frenzy grasps my shrinking brain,
Her touch absorbs the crystal fount of woe!
My blood rolls burning through each bursting vein:
Away, lost lyre—unless thou canst bestow
A charm to lull that agonising pain
Which those who never loved can never know!