The American poet Mary Oliver was no stranger to melancholy — but often her kind of melancholy seems to be of a more vital quality, than the kind of melancholia observed in Sebald’s univers.
Listen to this:
The Uses of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once game me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
“The Uses of Sorrow” by Mary Oliver, from Thirst, 2007. Beacon Press.
sub rosa 
A favorite poet of mine… thank you!