Daughter of Memory! who her watch doth keep
O’ er dark Oblivion’ s land of shade and dream,
Peers down into the realm of ancient Sleep,
Where Thought uprises with a sudden gleam
And lights the devious path’ twixt Be and Seem;
Mythologist! that dost thy legend steep
Plenteously with opiate and anodyne,
Inweaving fact with fable, line with line,
Entangling anecdote and episode,
Mindful of all that all men meant or said,—
We follow, pleased, thy labyrinthine road,
By Ariadne’ s skein and lesson led:
For thou hast wrought so excellently well,
Thou drop’ st more casual truth than sages tell.