That spark unburied in its mortal frame, "Yet on the barren shore and stormy deep, "Farewell! when strangers lift thy father's bier, And place my nameless stone without a tear; When each returning pledge hath told my child That Conrad's tomb is on the desert piled; And when the dream of troubled fancy sees Its lonely rank grass waving in the breeze; Who then will soothe thy grief when mine is o'er? Who will protect thee, helpless Ellenore? Shall secret scenes thy filial sorrows hide, Scorn'd by the world, to factious guilt allied? Ah! no: methinks the generous and the good Will woo thee from the shades of solitude! O'er friendless grief compassion shall awake, And smile on Innocence, for Mercy's sake!" 58 PLEASURES OF HOPE. Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be, The tears of love were hopeless, but for thee! Why is their memory sacred to the heart? By artless friendship bless'd when life was new? Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime Peal'd their first notes to sound the march of Time, Thy joyous youth began-but not to fade.When all the sister planets have decay'd; When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow, And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below; Thou, undismay'd, shalt o'er the ruins smile, And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile! NOTES ΤΟ PLEASURES OF HOPE. PART II. Note (a.) The noon of Manhood to a myrtle shade! Sacred to Venus is the myrtle shade. Note (b.) Thy woes, Arion! Dryden. Falconer, in his poem, The Shipwreck, speaks of himself by the name of Arion. See Falconer's Shipwreck, Canio II. Note (c.) The robber Moor. See Schiller's tragedy of the Robber, scene v. Note (d.) What millions died that Cæsar might be great. The carnage occasioned by the wars of Julius Cæsar has been usually estimated at two millions of men. Note (e.) Or learn the fate that bleeding thousands bore, March'd by their Charles to Dneiper's swampy shore. In this extremity, (says the biographer of Charles XII. of Sweden, speaking of his military exploits before the battle of Pultowa,) the memorable winter of 1709, which was still more remarkable in that part of Europe than in France, destroyed numbers of his troops: for Charles resolved to brave the seasons as he had done his enemies, and ventured to make long marches during this mortal cold. It was in one of these marches that two thousand men fell down dead with cold, before his eyes. ANALYSIS OF PART I. THE Poem begins with the description of an obscure vil lage, and of the pleasing melancholy which it excites on be ing revisited after a long absence. This mixed sensation is an effect of the Memory. From an effect we naturally ascend to the cause; and the subject proposed, is then unfolded with an investigation of the nature and leading principles of this faculty. It is evident that our ideas flow in continual succession, and introduce each other with a certain degree of regularity. They are sometimes excited by sensible objects, and some times by an internal operation of the mind. Of the former species is most probably the meniory of brutes; and its many sources of pleasure to them, as well as to us, are considered in the first part. The latter is the most perfect degree of memory, and forms the subject of the second. When ideas have any relation whatever, they are attractive of each other in the mind; and the perception of any object naturally leads to the idea of another, which was connected with it either in time or place, or which can be compared or contrasted with it. Hence arises our attachment to inanimate objects; hence also, in some degree, the love of our country, and the emotion with which we contemplate the celebrated scenes of antiquity. Hence a picture directs our thoughts to the original; and, as cold and darkness suggest forcibly the ideas of heat and light, he, who feels the infirmities of age, dwells most on whatever reminds him of the vigour and vivacity of his youth. The associating principle, as here employed, is no less conducive to virtue than to happpiness; and, as such, it frequently discovers itself in the most tumultuous scenes of life. It addresses our finer feelings, and gives exercise to every mild and generous propensity. Not confined to man, it extends through all animated nature; and its effects are peculiarly striking in the domestic tribes. THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY. PART I. TWILIGHT'S Soft dews steal o'er the village-green, With magic tints to harmonize the scene. Still'd is the hum that through the hamlet broke, Mark yon old Mansion frowning through the trees, Whose hollow turret wooes the whistling breeze. That casement arch'd with ivy's brownest shade, First to these eyes the light of heaven convey'd. The mouldering gateway strews the grass-grown court, Once the calm scene of many a simple sport; |