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The art creative, that all-modestly arose
From clay and stone, with silent triumph throws
Its arms around the spirit’s vast domain.
What in the land of knowledge the discoverer knows,
He knows, discovers, only for your gain
The treasures that the thinker has amassed,
He will enjoy within your arms alone,
Soon as his knowledge, beauty-ripe at last.
To art ennobled shall have grown,–
Soon as with you he scales a mountain-height,
And there, illumined by the setting sun,
The smiling valley bursts upon his sight.
The richer ye reward the eager gaze
The higher, fairer orders that the mind
May traverse with its magic rays,
Or compass with enjoyment unconfined–
The wider thoughts and feelings open lie
To more luxuriant floods of harmony.
To beauty’s richer, more majestic stream,–
The fair members of the world’s vast scheme,
That, maimed, disgrace on his creation bring,
He sees the lofty forms then perfecting–

The fairer riddles come from out the night–
The richer is the world his arms enclose,
The broader stream the sea with which he flows–
The weaker, too, is destiny’s blind might–
The nobler instincts does he prove–
The smaller he himself, the greater grows his love.
Thus is he led, in still and hidden race,
By poetry, who strews his path with flowers,
Through ever-purer forms, and purer powers,
Through ever higher heights, and fairer grace.
At length, arrived at the ripe goal of time,–
Yet one more inspiration all-sublime,
Poetic outburst of man’s latest youth,
And–he will glide into the arms of truth!

Herself, the gentle Cypria,
Illumined by her fiery crown,
Then stands before her full-grown son
Unveiled–as great Urania;
The sooner only by him caught,
The fairer he had fled away!
Thus stood, in wonder rapture-fraught,
Ulysses’ noble son that day,
When the sage mentor who his youth beguiled;
Herself transfigured as Jove’s glorious child!

Man’s honor is confided to your hand,–
There let it well protected be!
It sinks with you! with you it will expand!
Poesy’s sacred sorcery
Obeys a world-plan wise and good;
In silence let it swell the flood
Of mighty-rolling harmony.

By her own time viewed with disdain,
Let solemn truth in song remain,
And let the Muses’ band defend her!
In all the fullness of her splendor,
Let her survive in numbers glorious,
More dread, when veiled her charms appear,
And vengeance take, with strains victorious,
On her tormentor’s ear!

The freest mother’s children free,
With steadfast countenance then rise
To highest beauty’s radiancy,
And every other crown despise!
The sisters who escaped you here,
Within your mother’s arms ye’ll meet;
What noble spirits may revere,
Must be deserving and complete.
High over your own course of time
Exalt yourselves with pinion bold,
And dimly let your glass sublime
The coming century unfold!
On thousand roads advancing fast
Of ever-rich variety,
With fond embraces meet at last
Before the throne of harmony!
As into seven mild rays we view
With softness break the glimmer white,
As rainbow-beams of sevenfold hue
Dissolve again in that soft light,
In clearness thousandfold thus throw
Your magic round the ravished gaze,–
Into one stream of light thus flow,–
One bond of truth that ne’er decays!