Ode To Memory

From the fountains of the past,

            To glorify the present; oh, haste,

                        Visit my low desire!

            Strengthen me, enlighten me!

            I faint in this obscurity,

            Thou dewy dawn of memory.

Flinging the gloom of yesternight

On the white day; but robed in soften'd light

                        Of orient state.

Whilome thou earnest with the morning mist,

      Even as a maid, whose stately brow

The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd,

                        When she, as thou,

Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight

Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots

Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,

Which in wintertide shall star

The black earth with brilliance rare.

And with the evening cloud,

Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast.

(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind

                        Never grow sere,

When rooted in the garden of the mind.

      Because they are the earliest of the year).

                  Nor was the night thy shroud.

In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest

Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.

The eddying of her garments caught from thee

The light of thy great presence; and the cope

      Of the half-attain'd futurity,

      Though deep not fathomless,

Was cloven with the million stars which tremble

O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.

Small thought was there of life's distress;

For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull

Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful:

Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,

Listening the lordly music flowing from

            The illimitable years.

      Oh strengthen me, enlighten me!

      I faint in this obscurity,

      Thou dewy dawn of memory.

Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!

Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines

                  Unto mine inner eye,

                  Divinest memory!

Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall

Which ever sounds and shines

      A pillar of white light upon the wall

Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:

Come from the woods that belt the gray hill-side,

The seven elms, the poplars four

That stand beside my father's door,

And chiefly from the brook that loves

To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,

Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,

Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,

                  In every elbow and turn,

The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland.

                  I hither lead thy feet!

Pour round mine oars the livelong bleat

Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,

                  Upon the ridged wolds,

When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud

Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,

What time the amber morn

Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

To the young spirit present

            When first she is wed;

                  And like a bride of old

            In triumph led,

                        With music and sweet showers

                        Of festal flowers,

                  Unto the dwelling she must sway.

Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,

      In setting round thy first experiment

            With royal frame-work of wrought gold;

Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,

And foremost in thy various gallery

      Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls

      Upon the storied walls;

                        For the discovery

And newness of thine art so pleased thee,

That all which thou hast drawn of fairest

      Or boldest since, but lightly weighs

With thee unto the love thou bearest

The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like,

Ever retiring thou dost gaze

On the prime labour of thine early days:

No matter what the sketch might be;

Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,

Or even a sand-built ridge

Of heaped hills that mound the sea,

Overblown with murmurs harsh,

Or even a lowly cottage whence we see

Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh.

Where from the frequent bridge,

Like emblems of infinity,

The trenched waters run from sky to sky;

Or a garden bower'd close

With plaited alleys of the trailing rose,

Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,

Or opening upon level plots

Of crowned lilies, standing near

Purple-spiked lavender:

Whither in after life retired

From brawling storms,

From weary wind,

With youthful fancy reinspired.

We may hold converse with all forms

Of the many-sided mind,

And those whom passion hath not blinded,

Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.

My friend, with you to live alone,

Methinks were better than to own

A crown, a sceptre, and a throne.

O strengthen me, enlighten me!

I faint in this obscurity,

Thou dewy dawn of memory.