Memory is not wisdom; idiots can rote volumes: Yet, what is wisdom without memory? a babe that is strangled in its birth, The path of the swallow in the air, the path of the dolphin in the waters, A cask running out, a bottomless chasm: such is wisdom without memory. There be many wise, who cannot store their knowledge; Yet from themselves are they satisfied, for the fountain is within: There be many who store, but have no wisdom of their own, Lumbering their armoury with weapons their muscles cannot lift: There be many thieves and robbers, who glean and store unlawfully, Calling in to memory's help some cunningly devised Cabala: But to feed the mind with fatness, to fill thy granary with corn, Nor clog with chaff and straw the threshing-floor of reason, Reap the ideas, and house them well; but leave the words high stubble: Strive to store up what was thought, despising what was said. For the mind is a spirit, and drinketh in ideas, as flame melteth into flame; But for words it must pack them as on floors, cumbrous and perishable merchandize. To be pained for a minute, to fear for an hour, to hope for a week--how long and weary! But to remember fourscore years, is to look back upon a day. An avenue seemeth to lengthen in the eyes of the wayfaring man, But let him turn, those stationed elms crowd up within a yard; Pace the lamp-lit streets of some sleeping city, The multitude of cressets shall seem one, in the false picture of perspective; Even so, in sweet treachery, dealeth the aged with himself, He gazeth on the green hill-tops, while the marshes beneath are hidden; And the partial telescope of memory pierceth the blank between, To look with lingering love at the fair star of childhood. Life is as the current spark on the miner's wheel of flints; Whiles it spinneth there is light; stop it, all is darkness: Life is as a morsel of frankincense burning in the hall of Eternity; It is gone, but its odorous cloud curleth to the lofty roof: Life is as a lump of salt, melting in the temple-laver; It is gone,--yet its savour reacheth to the farthest atom: Even so, for evil or for good, is life the criterion of a man, For its memories of sanctity or sin pervade all the firmament of being. There is but the flitting moment, wherein to hope or to enjoy, But in the calendar of Memory, that moment is all time. [Illustration] THE DREAM OF AMBITION.