When, with the silent energy of grief,

With looks that ask'd, yet dar'd not hope relief,
Want, with her babes, round generous Valour clung,
To wring the slow surrender from his tongue,
'Twas thine to animate her closing eye;
Alas! 'twas thine perchance the first to die,

Crush'd by her meagre hand, when welcom'd from thesky.

Hark! the bee winds her small but mellow horn,(t) Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn.

O'er thymy downs she bends her busy course,
And many a stream allures her to its source.
'Tis noon, 'tis night. That eye so finely wrought,
Beyond the search of sense, the soar of thought,
Now vainly asks the scenes she left behind;
Its orbs so full, its visions so confin'd!
Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell?
Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell?
With conscious truth, retrace the mazy clue
Of varied scents, that charm'd her as she flew ?
Hail, MEMORY, hail! thy universal reign
Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

THE

PLEASURES OF MEMORY.

PART II.

Delle cose custode, e dispensiera,

TASSO.

Analysis of Part II.

THE Memory has hitherto acted only in subservience to the senses; and so far man is not eminently distinguished from other animals: but, with respect to man, she has a higher province; and is often busily employed, when excited by no external cause whatever. She preserves, for his use, the treasures of art and science, history and philosophy. She colours all the prospects of life: for we can only anticipate the future, by concluding what is possible from what is past. On her agency depends every effusion of the Fancy, whose boldest effort can only compound or transpose, augment or diminish the materials which she has collected and retained.

When the first emotions of despair have subsided, and sorrow has softened into melancholy, she amuses with a retrospect of innocent pleasures, and inspires that noble confidence which results from the consciousness of having acted well. When sleep has suspended the organs of sense from their office, she not only supplies the mind with

images, but assists in their combination. And even in madness itself, when the soul is resigned over to the tyranny of a distempered imagination, she revives past perceptions, and awakens the train of thought which was formerly most familiar.

Nor are we pleased only with a review of the brighter passages of life; events, the most distressing in their immediate consequences, are often cherished in remembrance with a degree of enthusiasm.

But the world and its occupations give a mechanical impulse to the passions, which is not very favourable to the indulgence of this feeling. It is in a calm and well regulated mind that the Memory is most perfect; and solitude is her best sphere of action. With this sentiment is introduced a Tale, illustrative of her influence in solitude, sickness, and sorrow. And the subject having now been considered, so far as it relates to man and the animal world, the Poem concludes with a conjecture, that superior beings are blest with a nobler exercise of this faculty.