I.
OU 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.
II. Come not as thou camest of late, Flinging the gloom of
On the white day, but robed in soften’d light Of orient state.
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist, Even as a maid, whose stately
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss’d, When she, as thou,
Stays on her floating locks the lovely
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall
The black earth with brilliance rare.
II.
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 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
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.
The eddying of her garments caught from
The light of thy great presence; and the cope Of the half-attain’d futurity, Tho’ 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
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. O strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory.
IV.
Come forth,
I charge thee, arise,
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
Which ever sounds and shines A pillar of white light upon the
Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:
Come from the woods that belt the gray hillside,
The seven elms, the poplars
That stand beside my father’s door,
And chiefly from the brook that
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; O! hither lead thy feet!
Pour round mine ears the livelong
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds, Upon the ridged wolds,
When the first matin-song hath waken’d
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amber
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.
V.
Large dowries doth the raptured eye 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 framework 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
And newness of thine art so pleased thee,
That all which thou hast drawn of
Or boldest since but lightly
With thee unto the love thou
The first-born of thy genius.
Artist-like,
Ever retiring thou dost
On the prime labor of thine early days,
No matter what the sketch might be:
Whether the high field on the bushless pike,
Or even a sand-built
Of heaped hills that mound the sea,
Overblown with murmurs harsh,
Or even a lowly cottage whence we
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
With plaited alleys of the trailing rose,
Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,
Or opening upon level
Of crowned lilies, standing
Purple-spiked lavender:
Whither in after life
From brawling storms,
From weary wind,
With youthful fancy re-inspired, We may hold converse with all
Of the many-sided mind,
And those whom passion hath not blinded,
Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.
My friend, with you to live
Were how much better than to ownA crown, a sceptre, and a throne!
O strengthen me, englighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
