The snow had fallen many nights and days;
The sky was come upon the earth at last,
Sifting thinly down as endlessly
As though within the system of blind planets
Something had been forgot or overdriven.
The dawn now seemed neglected in the grey
Where mountains were unbuilt and shadowless trees
Rootlessly paused or hung upon the air.
There was no wind, but now and then a sigh
Crossed that dry falling dust and rifted it
Through crevices of slate and door and casement.
Perhaps the new moon's time was even past.

But all this while I've soundly slept,
And rav'd as Dreamers use:
Fy! what a coil my brains have kept
T' instruct a sawcy Muse
Her own fair Sex t' abuse.
'Tis nothing but an ill Digestion
Has thus brought Women's Fame in question,
Which have been, and still will be what they are,
That is, as chaste, as they are sweet and fair;
And all that has been said
Nothing but ravings of an idle Head,
Troubled with fumes of wine;
For now, that I am broad awake,
I find 'tis all a gross mistake,
Else what a case were his, and thine, and mine?

She that is chast, is always fair,
No matter for her Hue,
And though for form she were a Star,
She's ugly, if untrue:
True Beauty alwayes lies within,
Much deeper, than the outer skin,
So deep, that in a Woman's mind,
It will be hard, I doubt, to find;
Or if it be, she's so deriv'd,
And with so many doors contriv'd,
Harder by much to keep it in.
For Vertue in a Woman's Breast
Seldom by Title is possest,
And is no Tenant, but a wand'ring Guest.

O, walk beside me through this vale of strife,
Forsake me not, thou Spirit of my life!
Sole treasurer of youth's glories at its springs,
Of all its orient imaginings:
Thou that at life's close dost sit,
Smiling by ambition's grave,
When the sun doth shine on it,
When the storms have ceased to rave;
When Meditation's self is born from thee,
And owns the wisdom drawn from Memory .

O holiest Memory!
May I not give thee thy true name,
Life's tutelary spirit watching nigh,
Recalling starry immortality?
Thou that startlest us with fear,
To awaken, and reclaim
From passion, and ourselves reverè;
Strengthening in us hope whose rays
Gather glory from thy gaze;
Who dost warn us by the past,
By thy pictured world o'ercast,
How life's shadow fades at last;
Who teachest discipline of duty,
Filling the temple of the soul
With shapes of grandeur and of beauty;
The good, the great, that rise at thy control.

Reflector of our being! mirroring river,
For ever from us flowing;
We draw from thee the wealth of our bestowing,
Receptacle and giver;
Thou that wrappest us apart
In the world of our own heart.
Oh, if thou, Memory! be thus divine,
What is my spirit that evoketh thine?
Thou art our inmate child, our own,
Yet do I reverence as before a throne,
Yea, worship at thy shrine.
For why? from thee I gather all;
Thou art my life's coronal;
Thou dost my universe unfold;
An everlasting festival
In thy company I hold.

Yet to us dost thou recall,
Memory, what we are and were,
Ere succumbed to earthlier thrall;
Visitations rich and rare,
Lights revealing treasures deep
Hidden, over which we sleep.
So art thou hope's harbinger;
Or rather do I call thee Seer,
When with the prophetic eye,
Lightened from futurity,
Thou, from Pisgah, dost descry
Mighty foreshadowings that to thee appear;
Shapes where settled glories rest,
Drawn not from fading vapours of the west;
When mysterious visitings
Come to us, imaginings
Undefined of glorious things;

No, prescient Memory!
Thine an auguster destiny.
Thy morning rays draw birth
Beyond the gates of our mortality,
Thy founts from the Eternal welling forth.
Thy impulses unto us come
From an immortal home;
From being known in brighter spheres,
When dwelling in a loftier height,
Beyond the shadow of the night;
From a past indefinite,
Gulfed in unfathomable years,
Where the beautiful revealed
Shone on us, now half concealed;
Glowing instincts, purple hues,
Which the infant soul imbues,
Faintly fading as it leaves
Farther thy day-gates behind;

Where, inmate of our spirit! wast thou born?
Thou that in life's early morn
Treasurest the shapes of things
Hued by our imaginings,
From thee mirrored; that dost give
Pictured forms that in us live,
Then when fancy's tints are shed,
And youth's glorious visions fled,
Was thy sacred office given
To record our hurried days,
Through life's crowded pathways driven?
The brief rapture, and the tear,
Spring of life and autumn sere;
Passions evil, mixed, and good,
We gave way to, or withstood,
Waxing feebler as decays

I have invoked thee, but awhile have stood
Silent before thy altar-place, for how
May I the song of gratitude,
Divinest Memory! to thee avow?
Thou life of our departed being!
Our thought and feeling ever fleeing
Into thy shadowy receptacle,
That doth in the bosom dwell
As music in the folded shell.
The past were starless vacancy and void,
All that we felt and suffered and enjoyed,
But that thou sheddest on the stream
Of vanished years thy stationary gleam,
Proving existence not a dream.