Thus, with delight, we linger to survey

The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;

Thus, from afar, each dim-discover'd 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 heav'nly pow'r,

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.

"When peace 8

When Murder baril her arm 5 rampant Mar,
Yokid the red dragons of her iron car ;
peace & mercy

banishi i prom the plain,
Sprung
on the viewless winds to Hearn

.

With thee, sweet Hope! resides the heavenly light,

That pours remotest rapture on the sight :

Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd 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 mourn’d 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, banish'd from the plain,

Sprung on the viewless winds to Heav'n again;

All, all forsook the friendless guilty mind,

But Hope, the charmer, linger'd still behind.

Thus, while Elijah's burning wheels prepare

From Carmel's heights to sweep the fields of air,

The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began,

Dropt on the world—a sacred gift to man.

Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow

Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe:

Won by their sweets, in Nature's languid hour, The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower;

There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,

What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring !