Daughter of Memory! who her watch doth keep O’er dark Oblivion’s land of shade and dream, Peers down into the realm of ancient Sleep, Where Thought uprises with a sudden gleam And lights the devious path ’twixt Be and Seem; Mythologist! that dost thy legend steep Plenteously with opiate and anodyne, Inweaving fact with fable, line with line, Entangling anecdote and episode, Mindful of all that all men meant or said,— We follow, pleased, thy labyrinthine road, By Ariadne’s skein and lesson led: For thou hast wrought so excellently well, Thou drop’st more casual truth than sages tell.
“Not on the store of sprightly wine, Nor plenty of delicious meats, Though gracious Nature did design To court us with perpetual treats; ’Tis not on these we for content depend, So much as on the shadow of a friend.” Menander.
VI.
Misfortune to have lived not knowing thee! ’T were not high living, nor to noblest end, Who, dwelling near, learned not sincerity, Rich friendship’s ornament that still doth lend To life its consequence and propriety. Thy fellowship was my culture, noble friend: By the hand thou took’st me, and did’st condescend To bring me straightway into thy fair guild; And life-long hath it been high compliment By that to have been known, and thy friend styled, Given to rare thought and to good learning bent; Whilst in my straits an angel on me smiled. Permit me, then, thus honored, still to be A scholar in thy university.
“He shall not seek to weave, In weak, unhappy times, Efficacious rhymes; Wait his returning strength. Bird, that from the nadir’s floor To the zenith’s top can soar, The soaring orbit of the Muse exceeds that journey’s length.”
VII.
Hierophant, and lyrist of the soul! Clear insight thine of universal mind; While from its crypts the nascent Powers unrol, And represent to consciousness the Whole. Each in its order seeks its natural kind, These latent or apparent, stir or sleep, Watchful o’er widening fields of airy space, Or slumbering sightless in the briny deep;— Thou, far above their shows, servant of Grace, Tread’st the bright way from Spirit down to Sense, Interpreting all symbols to thy race,— Commanding vistas of the fair Immense, And glimpses upward far, where, sons of Heaven, Sit in Pantheon throned the Sacred Seven.
“The princely mind, that can Teach man to keep a God in man,— And when wise poets would search out to see Good men, behold them all in thee!”
VIII.
Pleased, I recall those hours, so fair and free, When all the long forenoons we two did toss From lip to lip, in lively colloquy, Plato, Plotinus, or famed schoolman’s gloss, Disporting in rapt thought and ecstasy. Then by the tilting rail Millbrook we cross, And sally through the fields to Walden wave, Plunging within the cove, or swimming o’er; Through woodpaths wending, he with gesture quick Rhymes deftly in mid-air with circling stick, Skims the smooth pebbles from the leafy shore, Or deeper ripples raises as we lave; Nor slumb’rous pillow touches at late night, Till converse with the stars his eyes invite.