From the Porch's murky depths
Comes a doctrine sage,
That doth liken living mind
To a written page;
Since all knowledge comes through
Sense,
Graven by Experience.
'As,' say they, 'the pen its marks
Curiously doth trace
On the smooth unsullied white
Of the paper's face,
So do outer things impress
Images on consciousness.'
But if verily the mind
Thus all passive lies;
If no living power within
Its own force supplies;
If it but reflect again,
Like a glass, things false and vain —
Whence the wondrous faculty
That perceives and knows,
That in one fair ordered scheme
Doth the world dispose;
Grasps each whole that Sense presents,
Or breaks into elements?
So divides and recombines,
And in changeful wise
Now to low descends, and now
To the height doth rise;
Last in inward swift review
Strictly sifts the false and true?
Of these ample potencies
Fitter cause, I ween,
Were Mind's self than marks impressed
By the outer scene.
Yet the body through the sense
Stirs the soul's intelligence.
When light flashes on the eye,
Or sound strikes the ear,
Mind aroused to due response
Makes the message clear;
And the dumb external signs
With the hidden forms combines.
Monadnock Valley Press > Boethius > The Consolation of Philosophy