THE

PLEASURES OF HOPE.

THE

PLEASURES OF HOPE.

PART I.

ANALYSIS.

THE Poem opens with a comparison between the beauty of remote objects in a landscape, and those ideal scenes of felicity which the imagination delights to contemplate-The influence of anticipation upon the other passions is next delineated-An allusion 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 consolations of this passion in situations of danger and distress-The seaman on his watch-The soldier marching into battle-Allusion to the interesting adventures of Byron.

The inspiration of Hope, as it actuates the efforts of genius, whether in the department of science or of taste-Domestic felicity, how intimately connected with views of future happiness-Picture of a mother watching her infant when asleepPictures of the prisoner, the maniac, and the wanderer.

From the consolations of individual misery a transition is made to prospects of political improvement in the future state

of society-The wide field that is yet open for the progress of humanizing arts among uncivilized nations-From these views of amelioration of society, and the extension of liberty and truth over despotic and 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.

THE

PLEASURES OF HOPE.

PART I.

Ar summer's eve, when Heaven's ethereal 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 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 heavenly power,
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour?
Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man-
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;

A