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THE

PLEASURES OF HOPE;

PART FIRST.

:

ANALYSIS OF PART I.

THE Poem opens with a comparifon between the beauty of remote objects in a landscape, and those ideal fcenes of felicity which the imagination delights to contemplate. The influence of anticipation upon the other paffions is next delineated. An allufion is made to the well known fiction in Pagan tradition, that, when all the guardian deities of mankind abandoned the world, Hope alone was left behind.-The confolations of this paffion in fituations of danger and distress.-The feaman on his midnight watch. The foldier marching into battle.-Allufion to the interefting adventures of Byron.

The infpiration of Hope, as it actuates the efforts of genius, whether in the department of fcience, or of tafte.-Domestic felicity, how intimately connected with views of future happiness.-Picture of a mother watch

A

ing her infant when asleep.-Pictures of the prifoner, the maniac, and the wanderer.

From the confolations of individual misery, a transition is made to prospects of political improvement in the future ftate of fociety.-The wide field that is yet open for the progrefs of humanizing arts among uncivilized nations. From thefe views of amelioration of society, and the extenfion of liberty and truth over defpotic and barbarous countries, by a melancholy contrast of ideas we are led to reflect upon the hard fate of a brave people recently confpicuous in their ftruggles for independence.-Defcription of the capture of Warfaw, of the last conteft of the oppreffors and the oppreffed, and the maffacre of the Polish Patriots at the bridge of Prague. Apoftrophe to the felf-interefted enemies of human improvement.-The wrongs of Africa.-The barbarous policy of Europeans in India. Prophecy in the Hindoo mythology of the expected descent of the Deity, to redress the miferics of their race, and to take vengeance on the violators of justice and mercy.

PLEASURES OF HOPE.

PART I.

AT fummer eve, when Heav'n's aerial bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whofe funbright fummit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of fhadowy 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

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