Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 1).djvu/281

 CHAP. VII.

sweet are the scenes endeared to us by ideas which we have cherished in the society of one we have loved! How melancholy to wander amongst them again after an absence, perhaps of years; years which have changed the  tenour of our existence,—have changed even the friend,  the dear friend, for whose sake alone the landscape lives  in the memory, for whose sake tears flow at the each  varying feature of the scenery, which catches the eye of  one who has never seen them since he saw them with the  being who was dear to him!

Dark, autumnal, and gloomy was the hour; the winds whistled hollow, and over the expanse of heaven was spread an unvarying sombreness of vapour: nothing was  heard save the melancholy shriekings of the night-bird,  which, soaring on the evening blast, broke the stillness of