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 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 height to sweep the fields of air, The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began, Dropp'd on the world....a sacred gift to man.

of humanizing arts among uncivilized nations..... From these views of amelioration of society, and the extension of liberty and truth over barbarous countries, by a melancholy contrast of ideas we are led to reflect upon the hard fate of a brave people, recently conspicuous in their struggles for independence.....Description of the capture of Warsaw, of the last contest of the oppressors and the oppressed, and the massacre of the Polish patriots at the bridge of Prague. Apostrophe to the self-interested 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 miseries of their race, and to take vengeance on the violators of justice and mercy.

Pleasures of Hope.

PART 1.

AT summer eve, when Heaven's ærial bow.
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to you 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 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: