]
But, though he would discourage us from our attempt to chain his genius,
like a ghost, to his past life in this world, the poet is inclined to
admit that Mnemosyne, in her true grandeur, has a fair claim to her
title as mother of the muses. The memories of prosaic men may be, as we
have described them, short and sordid, concerned only with their
existence here and now, but the recollection of poets is a divine thing,
reaching back to the days when their spirits were untrammeled by the
body, and they gazed upon ideal beauty, when, as Plato says, they saw a
vision and were initiated into the most blessed mysteries ... beholding
apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy as in a mystery;
shining in pure light, pure themselves and not yet enshrined in the
living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the
body, as in an oyster shell. [Footnote: _Phaedrus_, 250.]
For the poet is apt to transfer Plato's praise of the philosopher to
himself, declaring that "he alone has wings, and this is just, for he is
always, according to the measure of his abilities, clinging in
recollection to those things in which God abides, and in beholding which
He is what He is.
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