Never the Theban Seer,4 whose blindness proved
His best illumination, Him beheld 30
In secret vision; never him the son
Of Pleione,5 amid the noiseless night
Descending, to the prophet-choir reveal'd;
Him never knew th'Assyrian priest,6 who yet
The ancestry of Ninus7 chronicles,
And Belus, and Osiris far-renown'd;
Nor even Thrice-great Hermes,7 although skill'd
So deep in myst'ry, to the worshippers
Of Isis show'd a prodigy like Him.
And thou,8 who hast immortalized the shades 40
Of Academus, if the school received
This monster of the Fancy first from Thee,
Either recall at once the banish'd bards
To thy Republic, or, thyself evinc'd
A wilder Fabulist, go also forth.
1 Goddess of Memory and mother of the Muses.
2 Pallas Athena.
3 Waters of oblivion and forgetfulness.
4 Tiresins. See Milton's Sixth Elegy, line 68.
5 Hermes (Mercury).
6 Perhaps the legendary Phoenician sage, Sanchuniathon.
7 A legendary Assyrian king. Belus is the Assyrian god Bel.
7 Hermes Trismegistus, author of Neo-Platonic works must esteemed.
8 Plato.
To My Father.
Oh that Pieria's spring1 would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable Father's sake
All meaner themes renounced, my Muse, on wings
Of Duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
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