The Consolation of Philosophy

Cloudy old prophets of the Porch¹ once taught

That sense and shape presented to the thought

From outward objects their impression take,

As when upon a paper smooth and plain

On which as yet no marks of ink have lain

We with a nimble pen do letters make.

But if our minds to nothing can apply

Their proper motions, but do patient lie

Subject to forms which do from bodies flow,

As a glass renders empty² shapes of things,

Who then can show from whence that motion springs

By force of which the mind all things doth know?

Or by what skill are several things espied?

And being known what power doth them divide,

And thus divided doth again unite,

And with a various journey oft aspires

To highest things, and oft again retires

To basest, nothing being out of sight,

And when she back unto herself doth move,

Doth all the falsehoods by the truth reprove?

This vigour needs must be an active cause,

And with more powerful forces must be deckt,

Than that which from those forms, that do reflect

From outward matter, all her virtue draws.

And yet in living bodies passion's might

Doth go before, whose office is to incite,

And the first motions in the mind to make.

As when the light unto our eyes appears,

Or some loud voice is sounded in our ears,

Then doth the strength of the dull mind awake

Those phantasies which she retains within;

She stirreth up such notions to begin,

Whose objects with their natures best agree,

And thus applying them to outward things,

She joins the external shapes which thence she brings

With forms which in herself included be.

"But rather you are to know that idols or things wander about many in number in many ways, of no force, powerless to excite sense."—Lucr. iv. 127, 128 (trans. Munro).