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| MNEME begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine, | |
| Your vent’rous Afric in her great design. | |
| Mneme, immortal pow’r, I trace thy spring: | |
| Assist my strains, while I thy glories sing: | |
| The acts of long departed years, by thee | 5 |
| Recover’d, in due order rang’d we see: | |
| Thy pow’r the long-forgotten calls from night, | |
| That sweetly plays before the fancy’s sight. | |
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| Mneme in our nocturnal visions pours | |
| The ample treasure of her secret stores; | 10 |
| Swift from above the wings her silent flight | |
| Through Phœbe’s realms, fair regent of the night; | |
| And, in her pomp of images display’d, | |
| To the high-raptur’d poet gives her aid, | |
| Through the unbounded regions of the mind, | 15 |
| Diffusing light celestial and refin’d. | |
| The heav’nly phantom paints the actions done | |
| By ev’ry tribe beneath the rolling sun. | |
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| Mneme, enthron’d within the human breast, | |
| Has vice condemn’d, and ev’ry virtue blest. | 20 |
| How sweet the sound when we her plaudit hear? | |
| Sweeter than music to the ravish’d ear, | |
| Sweeter than Maro’s entertaining strains | |
| Resounding through the groves, and hills, and plains. | |
| But how is Mneme dreaded by the race, | 25 |
| Who scorn her warnings, and despise her grace? | |
| By her unveil’d each horrid crime appears, | |
| Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears. | |
| Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe! | |
| Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know. | 30 |
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| Now eighteen years their destin’d course have run, | |
| In fast succession round the central sun. | |
| How did the follies of that period pass | |
| Unnotic’d, but behold them writ in brass! | |
| In Recollection see them fresh return, | 35 |
| And sure ’tis mine to be asham’d, and mourn. | |
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| O Virtue, smiling in immortal green, | |
| Do thou exert thy pow’r, and change the scene; | |
| Be thine employ to guide my future days, | |
| And mine to pay the tribute of my praise. | 40 |
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| Of Recollection such the pow’r enthron’d | |
| In ev’ry breast, and thus her pow’r is own’d. | |
| The wretch, who dar’d the vengeance of the skies, | |
| At last awakes in horror and surprize, | |
| By her alarm’d, he sees impending fate, | 45 |
| He howls in anguish, and repents too late. | |
| But O! what peace, what joys are hers t’ impart | |
| To ev’ry holy, ev’ry upright heart! | |
| Thrice blest the man, who, in her sacred shrine, | |
| Feels himself shelter’d from the wrath divine! | 50 |
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