"Ar summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye.
Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky?"

POEM.

PART II.

Ar summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye, Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky? Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?— 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue. Thus, with delight we linger to survey

The promised joy's of life's unmeasured way,

Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene

More pleasing seems than all the past hath been, And every form that Fancy can repair

From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.

What potent spirit guides the raptured eye

To pierce the shades of dim futurity?

Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,

The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour?

Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man—

Her dim horizon bounded to a span;

Or, if she hold an image to the view,

'Tis Nature pictured too severely true.

With thee, sweet HOPE! resides the heavenly light,
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of Life's bewildered way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.
Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To Pleasure's path, or Glory's bright career.

Primeval HOPE, the Aönian Muses say,
When Man and Nature mourned their first decay;
When every form of death, and every woe,

Shot from malignant stars to earth below;
When Murder bared her arm, and rampant War
Yoked the red dragons of her iron car,

When Peace and Mercy, banished from the plain,
Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven again;