Apostrophe, device by which an actor turns from the audience, or a writer from readers, to address a person who usually

is either absent or deceased, an inanimate object, or an abstract idea. The English poet John Milton, in his poem Il Penseroso, invokes the spirit of melancholy in the following words: Hail divinest Melancholy, whose saintly visage is too bright to hit the sense of human sight.
Exmples: "O western wind, when wilt thou blow That the small rain down can rain?" (anonymous, 16th century) "Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again . . .." (Paul Simon, "The Sounds of Silence") "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art" (John Keats) "Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." (James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) "Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone Without a dream in my heart Without a love of my own." (Lorenz Hart, "Blue Moon") "I believe it is the lost wisdom of my grandfather Whose ways were his own and who died before I could ask. "Forerunner, I would like to say, silent pilot, Little dry death, future, Your indirections are as strange to me As my own. I know so little that anything You might tell me would be a revelation." (W.S. Merwin, "Sire") "O stranger of the future! O inconceivable being! whatever the shape of your house, however you scoot from place to place, no matter how strange and colorless the clothes you may wear, I bet nobody likes a wet dog either. I bet everyone in your pub, even the children, pushes her away." (Billy Collins, "To a Stranger Born in Some Distant Country Hundreds of Years from Now") "Dear Ella Our Special First Lady of Song You gave your best for so long." (Kenny Burrell, "Dear Ella")