The Works of William Mason :: :: University of Virginia Library

Mother of wisdom! thou, whose sway
The throng'd ideal hosts obey;
Who bid'st their ranks, now vanish, now appear,
Flame in the van, or darken in the rear;
Accept this votive verse. Thy reign
Nor place can fix, nor power restrain.
All, all is thine. For thee, the ear and eye
Rove through the realms of grace and harmony:
The senses thee spontaneous serve,
That wake, and thrill through every nerve.
Else vainly soft, loved Philomel! would flow
The soothing sadness of thy warbled woe:
Else vainly sweet yon woodbine shade
With clouds of fragrance fill the glade;

Vainly the cygnet spread her downy plume,
The vine gush nectar, and the virgin bloom.
But swift to thee, alive, and warm,
Devolves each tributary charm:
See modest Nature bring her simple stores,
Luxuriant Art exhaust her plastic powers;
While every flower in Fancy's clime,
Each gem of old heroic Time,
Cull'd by the hand of the industrious Muse,
Around thy shrine their blended beams diffuse.

II

Hail, Memory! hail. Behold, I lead
To that high shrine the sacred Maid:
Thy daughter she, the empress of the lyre,
The first, the fairest of Aonia's quire.
She comes, and lo, thy realms expand:
She takes her delegated stand
Full in the midst, and o'er thy numerous train
Displays the awful wonders of her reign.
There throned supreme in native state
If Sirius flame with fainting heat,
She calls; ideal groves their shade extend,
The cool gale breathes, the silent showers descend.
Or, if bleak winter, frowning round,
Disrobe the trees, and chill the ground,
She, mild magician, waves her potent wand,
And ready summers wake at her command.

See, visionary suns arise,
Through silver clouds, and azure skies;
See sportive zephyrs fan the crisped streams;
Thro' shadowy brakes light glance the sparkling beams:
While, near the secret moss-grown cave,
That stands beside the crystal wave,
Sweet Echo, rising from her rocky bed,
Mimics the feather'd chorus o'er her head.

III

Rise, hallow'd Milton! rise, and say,
How, at thy gloomy close of day;
How, when “depress'd by age, beset with wrongs:”
When “fall'n on evil days and evil tongues;”
When darkness, brooding on thy sight,
Exiled the sov'reign lamp of light;
Say, what could then one cheering hope diffuse?
What friends were thine, save Mem'ry and the Muse?
Hence the rich spoils, thy studious youth
Caught from the stores of ancient truth:
Hence all thy classic wand'rings could explore,
When rapture led thee to the Latian shore;
Each scene, that Tiber's bank supplied;
Each grace, that play'd on Arno's side;
The tepid gales, through Tuscan glades that fly;
The blue serene, that spreads Hesperia's sky;
Were still thy own: thy ample mind
Each charm received, retain'd, combined.

And thence “the nightly visitant,” that came
To touch thy bosom with her sacred flame,
Recall'd the long-lost beams of grace,
That whilom shot from Nature's face,
When God, in Eden, o'er her youthful breast
Spread with his own right hand perfection's gorgeous vest.

According to a fragment of Afranius, who makes Experience and Memory the parents of Wisdom.

Usus me genuit, Mater peperit Memoria
ΣΟΦΙΑΝ vocant me Graii, vos Sapientiam.

This passage is preserved by Aulus Gellius, lib. xiii. cap. 8.