THE

PLEASURES OF HOPE.

PART I.

Ar summer eve, when Heav'n's aërial 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 tó 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 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 pictur'd too severely true.

Scott sculp

Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world.

Published as the let directs by Longman & Jan 1808.

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, th' 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;