Publ. 1805.

Lyrics: Samuel Rogers

Hail memory, hail. In thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine.
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And place and time are subject to thy sway.
Thy pleasures most we feel, when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky.

If but a beam of sober reason play,
Lo, fancy's fairy frost-work melts away.
But can the wiles of art, the grasp of power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight,
Pour round her path a stream of living light;
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest.