  Didactic muse Calliope, Expand thy soothing silent wings, Touch chords of measured harmony Wherein the soul ecstatic sings, Let language fraught with living truth Find such expression by thy art, As shall assist the guides of youth To fire the soul and win the heart. Remove the barriers which so long Have held in thraldom many a mind, Sing to the deaf a ransom-song, Be eyes to those whose souls are blind; Teach those who mould the plastic mind To know that God hath never given A mission weightier, more refined, To angels round the courts of heaven, Than that of training human minds Committed unto human hands, In which the spirit e'er survives And through eternity expands. Paint truthfully the living dead Whose sensibilities were slain By tyros, oft unskilled, unread, In all the workings of the brain; Whose concepts of the avenues That reach the mind of tender youth, Are labyrinths of tangled views Devoid of art, science, and truth; Touch but that chord of magic power Which gives the soul augmented bliss, And lifts it for the present hour Above the world's base selfishness; Then let the search-light of the soul Illumine every page that's read, Until an animated whole Shall supersede the living dead. Then, then shall dawn the golden day When Ignorance shall shamed-faced fly Before the potent living ray Of mind, touched by effulgency That pours its light in vital force, Upon the mind of plastic youth, And leads it gently to the source Of light and scientific truth. |
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