I know a dell the Muses haunt; lone scene,
Where ne’er ere now had mortal footstep been.
Curious they what wand’rer should invade
The tuneful solitude, and pray their aid.
Ungrateful office his who tries to set
Men free from the close meshes of the net
In which religions of whatever kind
Presume to hold humanity confined.
Repulsed by those for whose sakes I pursued
A thankless work, I trod ways rough and rude,
Until, the track by good chance missed, I came
Solitary, out of heart, footsore, lame,
To this strange spot where the Nine Sisters camp
Out in the wilderness, and light their lamp
To guide lost wayfarers thither.
I asked,
And received; the Goddesses even tasked
Themselves for my scorned mission, which they dressed
In new melodies as an honoured guest;
For it unsealing in the sands fresh springs,
Inspiring it to lift itself on wings,
While they bade flow’rs strange to poesy blow,
That they might wreathe a garland for my brow.
If I, to emancipate Mind, make use
Of verse, does the enlistment need excuse?
Ignorance is the babe who drinks all up
When doctors sweeten at its brim the cup.
No sickness equals spectres of the brain,
They enslave till the bondsman hugs his chain.
Whose soul should not burn, as like mine, it sees
Hale men being treated, as for disease,
With drugs that force a nightmare-ridden sleep,
When they might bask in sun, and shout, and leap!
But the remedy? Reason wears a face
Austere, abstracted, void of outward grace.
The problems it would solve are deep and high;
And the informing light they shed is dry.
The crowd, long since besotted, in affright
Shrinks to its lazy phantoms from the sight
Of Wisdom, grim and grimy, in the mire
Calling it to drudge and moil without hire.
Whatever means Souls’ doctors can command
Should not they use to make men understand
That they are free—the more for the consent
Of Heav’n’s music to be their instrument?
Music interprets Mind; by it I strive—
Like physicians by honey from the hive—
To clothe bare truths Philosophy has taught
In garb that points—not hides—the charms of Thought.
All praise be to the Muses that I find
Power in their sweet mystery to bind
A friend in toils so happy that his soul
Will refuse deliverance ere the whole
Reveals itself to him of Nature’s plan,
Even in our verse, and how good for Man!