Melissa's Ditty: Obscure and Dark is all the Gloomy Air -

Obscure and dark is all the gloomy air,

The curtain of the night is overspread;

The silent mistress of the lowest sphere

Puts on her sable-color'd veil and lower.

Nor star nor milk-white circle of the sky

Appears where Discontent doth hold her lodge;

She sits shrin'd in a canopy of clouds,

Whose massy darkness mazeth every sense.

Wan are her looks, her cheeks of azure hue,

Her hairs as Gorgon's foul retorting snakes,

Envy the glass wherein the hag doth gaze,

Restless the clock that chimes her fast asleep.

Disquiet thoughts the minutes of her watch.

Forth from her cave the fiend full oft doth fly;

To kings she goes and troubles them with crowns,

Setting those high-aspiring brands on fire.

That flame from earth unto the seat of Jove:

To such as Midas, men that dote on wealth

And rend the bowels of the middle earth

For coin, who gape, as did fair Danae,

For showers of gold, there Discontent in black

Throws forth the viols of her restless cares;

To such as sit at Paphos for relief,

And offer Venus many solemn vows;

To such as Hymen in his saffron robe

Hath knit a Gordian knot of passions.

To these, to all, parting the gloomy air,

Black Discontent doth make her bad repair.