PLEASURES OF HOPE,

PART I,

AT summer eve, when Heav'n's aerial bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright 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 promis'd joys of life's unmeasur'd 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 raptur'd eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity?
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heav'nly 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 pictur’d too severely true.'

With thee, sweet Hope! resides the heav'nly light,
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd way,
That calls each slumb'ring passion into play,
Wak'd 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 Aonian 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 bar'd his arm, and rampant War Yok'd the red dragons of her iron car;

When Peace and Mercy, banish'd from the plain,
Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven 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 height, 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 ! What viewless forms th' Æolian organ play, And sweep the furrow'd lines of thought away!

Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore Earth's loneliest bounds, and Ocean's wildest shore. Lo! to the wint'ry winds the pilot yields His bark careering o'er unfathom'd fields; Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar, Where Andes, giant of the western star, With meteor standard to the winds unfurl'd, Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world. Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles, On Behring's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles; Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow, From wastes that slumber in eternal snow; And waft, across the waves' tumultuous roar, The wolf's long howl from Oonalashka's shore.

Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm, Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form! Rocks, waves, and winds, the shatter'd bark delay; Thy heart is sad, thy home is far away.

But Hope can here her moonlight vigils keep, And sing to charm the spirit of the deep: Swift as yon streamer lights the starry pole, Her visions warm the watchman's pensive soul. His native hills that rise in happier climes, The grot that heard his song of other times, His cottage-home, his bark of slender sail; His glassy lake, and broomwood blossom’d vale, Rush on his thought; he sweeps before the wind, Treads the lov'd shore he sigh'd to leave behind; Meets at each step a friend's familiar face, And flies at last to Helen's long embrace ; Wipes from her cheek the rapture-speaking tear, And clasps, with many a sigh, his children dear!

While, long neglected, but at length caressid,
His faithful dog salutes the smiling guest,
Points to the master's eyes (where'er they roam)
His wistful face, and whines a welcome home.

Friend of the brave ! in peril's darkest hour,
Intrepid Virtue looks to thee for power;
To thee the heart its trembling homage yields,
On stormy floods, and carnage-cover'd fields,
When front to front the banner'd hosts combine,
Halt ere they close, and form the dreadful line.
When all is still on Death's devoted soil,
The march-worn soldier mingles for the toil;
As rings his glittering tube, he lifts on high
The dauntless brow, and spirit-speaking eye,
Hails in his heart the triumph yet to come,
And hears thy stormy music in the drum!

And such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore The hardy Byron to his native shore.... 1 In horrid climes, where Chiloe's tempests sweep Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep, 'Twas his to mourn misfortune's rudest shock, Scourg'd by the winds, and cradled on the rock, To wake each joyless morn, and search again The famish'd haunts of solitary men,