Ode to Memory

Thou who stealest fire,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.

Come not as thou camest of late,Flinging the gloom of yesternightOn the white day; but robed in soften’d lightOf orient state.Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,Even as a maid, whose stately browThe dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss’d,When she, as thou,Stays on her floating locks the lovely freightOf overflowing blooms, and earliest shootsOf orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,Which in wintertide shall starThe black earth with brilliance rare.

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist.And with the evening cloud,Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast,(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest windNever 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 restThou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.The eddying of her garments caught from theeThe light of thy great presence; and the copeOf the half-attain’d futurity,Though deep not fathomless,Was cloven with the million stars which trembleO’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 dullThose spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful:Sure she was nigher to heaven’s spheres,Listening the lordly music flowing fromThe illimitable years.O strengthen me, enlighten me!I faint in this obscurity,Thou dewy dawn of memory.

Come forth I charge thee, arise,Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vinesUnto mine inner eye,Divinest Memory!Thou wert not nursed by the waterfallWhich ever sounds and shinesA pillar of white light upon the wallOf purple cliffs, aloof descried:Come from the woods that belt the grey hill-side,The seven elms, the poplars fourThat stand beside my father’s door,And chiefly from the brook that lovesTo 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.O! hither lead thy feet!Pour round mine ears the livelong bleatOf the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,Upon the ridged wolds,When the first matin-song hath waken’d loudOver the dark dewy earth forlorn,What time the amber mornForth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

Large dowries doth the raptured eyeTo the young spirit presentWhen first she is wed;And like a bride of oldIn triumph led,With music and sweet showersOf festal flowers,Unto the dwelling she must sway.Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,In setting round thy first experimentWith royal frame-work of wrought gold;Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,And foremost in thy various galleryPlace it, where sweetest sunlight fallsUpon the storied walls;For the discoveryAnd newness of thine art so pleased thee,That all which thou hast drawn of fairestOr boldest since, but lightly weighsWith thee unto the love thou bearestThe first-born of thy genius.Artist-like,Ever retiring thou dost gazeOn 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 ridgeOf heaped hills that mound the sea,Overblown with murmurs harsh,Or even a lowly cottage whence we seeStretch’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 closeWith plaited alleys of the trailing rose,Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,Or opening upon level plotsOf crowned lilies, standing nearPurple-spiked lavender:Whither in after life retiredFrom brawling storms,From weary wind,With youthful fancy reinspired,We may hold converse with all formsOf the many-sided mind,And those whom passion hath not blinded,Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.My friend, with you to live alone,Were how much better than to ownA crown, a sceptre, and a throne!O strengthen, enlighten me!I faint in this obscurity,Thou dewy dawn of memory.