Sonnet: Ye unseen spirits, whose wild melodies

Ye unseen spirits, whose wild melodies,
At evening rising slow, yet sweetly clear,
Steal on the musing poet's pensive ear,
As by the wood-spring stretch'd supine he lies;
When he, who now invokes you, low is laid,
His tired frame resting on the earth's cold bed;
Hold ye your nightly vigils o'er his head,
And chant a dirge to his reposing shade!
For he was wont to love your madrigals;
And often by the haunted stream, that laves
The dark sequester'd woodland's inmost caves,
Would sit and listen to the dying falls,
Till the full tear would quiver in his eye,
And his big heart would heave with mournful ecstasy.