The acts of long departed yours by thee
Recovered, in due order ranged we see:
Thy power the long-forgotten calls from night,
That sweetly plays before the fancy's sight.
Mneme in our nocturnal visions pours
The ample treasure of her secret stores;
Swift from above, she wings her silent flight
Through Phebe's realms, fair regent of the night,
And, in her pomp of images displayed,
To the high-raptured poet gives her aid;
Through the unbounded regions of the mind,
Diffusing light, celestial and refined.
The heavenly phantom paints the actions done
By every tribe beneath the rolling sun.
Mneme, enthroned within the human breast,
Has vice condemned, and every virtue blest.
How sweet the sound when we her plaudit hear!
Sweeter than music to the ravished ear,
Sweeter than Maro's entertaining strains,
Resounding through the groves, and hills, and plains.
But how is Mneme dreaded by the race
Who scorn her warnings, and despise her grace!
By her unveiled each horrid crime appears,
Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears.
Days, years, misspent, oh what a hell of woe!
Hers the worst tortures that the soul can know.
Now eighteen years their destined course have run.
In fast succession round the central sun.
