despondent. The poems also revealed her highly developed spiritual side. With these lines, written in the poem The Introduction by Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, readers are welcomed into a vibrant, emotional, and opinionated style. They are unapologetically let in on the distinctly female voice that is to come. Melancholy, full of wit, and socially conscious, Anne Finch wrote verse and dramatic literature with a talent that has caused her works to not only survive, but to flourish in an impressive poetic legacy throughout the centuries since her death. The Spleen Finch's experimented with the poetic traditions of her day, often straying from the fold through her use of rhyme, metre and content, which ranged from the simplistic to the metaphysical. Finch also wrote several satiric vignettes modelled after the short tales of French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine. She mocked La Fontaine's fables, offering social criticism through biting sarcasm. Finch's more melancholy fare, however, gained her wider acclaim. Her famous poems in this sullen vein include A Nocturnal Reverie and Ardelia to Melancholy, both depicting severe depression. Finch also skilfully employed the Pindaric ode, exploring complex and irregular structures and rhyme schemes. Her most famous example of this technique is in The Spleen (written in stanzas after Cowley's manner, and first published in Charles Gildon's Miscellany of 1701), a poetic expression of her first-hand experience of depression and its effects – a condition that was popularly associated with the spleen: This poem was first published anonymously, though it went on to become one of her most renowned pieces. Virginia Woolf said of Finch, "a thousand pities that [her mind] should have been forced to [such] anger and bitterness" Despite her occasionally overtly melancholy outlook, as many prominent friends of hers pointed out, Anne Finch was a competent, effective writer and is known today as one of the most versatile and gifted poets of her generation. One of her poems was set to music by Purcell. Selected works Writings by the author Upon the Death of King James the Second, anonymous (London, 1701). The Tunbridge Prodigy (London: Printed & sold by John Morphew, 1706). The Spleen, A Pindarique Ode. By a Lady (London: Printed & sold by H. Hills, 1709). Free-thinkers: A Poem in Dialogue (London, 1711). Miscellany Poems, on Several Occasions. Written by a Lady (London: Printed for John Barber & sold by Benj. Tooke, William Taylor & James