<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116991" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Pleasures of Hope</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Part I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow<br>Spans with bright arch the glittering bills below,<br>Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,<br>Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky ?<br>Why do those clifts of shadowy tint appear<br>More sweet than all the landscape smiling near ?—<br>'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,<br>And robes the mountain in its azure hue.<br>Thus, with delight, we linger to survey<br>The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;<br>Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene<br>More pleasing seems than all the past hath been,<br>And every form, that Fancy can repair<br>From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.<br> What potent spirit guides the raptured eye<br>To pierce the shades of dim futurity ?<br>Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,<br>The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour ?<br>Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man—<br>Her dim horizon bounded to a span;<br>Or, if she hold an image to the view,<br>'T is Nature pictured too severely true.<br>With thee, sweet Hope! resides the heavenly light,<br>That pours remotest rapture on the sight:<br>Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way,<br>That calls each slumbering passion into play.<br>Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band,<br>On tiptoe watching, staft at thy command<br>And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,<br>To Pleasure's path or Glory's bright career.<br> Primeval Hope, the Aonian Muses say,<br>When Man and Nature mourned their first decay;<br>When every form of death, and every woe,<br>Shot from malignant stars to earth below ;<br>When Murder bared her arm, and rampant War<br>Yoked the red dragons of her iron car ;<br>When Peace and Mercy, banished from the plain,<br>Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven again ;<br>All, all forsook the friendless, guilty mind,<br>But Hope, the charmer, lingered still behind.<br> Thus, while Elijah's burning wheels prepare<br>From Carmel's heights to sweep the fields of air,<br>The prophet's mantle, ere his fight began,<br>Dropt on the world—a sacred gift to man.<br> Auspicious Hope ! in thy sweet garden grow<br>Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe ;<br>Won by their sweets, in Nature's languid hour,<br>The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower ;<br>There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,<br>What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring<br>What viewless forms th' Æolian organ play,<br>And sweep the furrowed lines of anxious thought away.<br> Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore<br>Earth's loneliest bounds, and Ocean's wildest shore<br>Lo! to the wintry winds the pilot yields<br>His bark careering o'er unfathomed fields ;<br>Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar,<br>Where Andes, giant of the western star,<br>With meteor-standard to the winds unfurled,<br>Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world !<br> Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles,<br>On Behring's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles:<br>Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow,<br>From wastes that slumber in eternal snow ;<br>And waft, across the waves' tumultuous roar,<br>The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.<br> Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm,<br>Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form !<br>Rocks, waves, and winds, the shattered bark delay ;<br>Thy heart is sad, thy home is far away.<br>But Hope can here her moonlight vigils keep,<br>And sing to charm the spirit of the deep:<br>Swift as yon streamer lights the starry pole,<br>Her visions warm the watchman's pensive soul ;<br>His native hills that rise in happier climes,<br>The grot that heard his song of other times,<br>His cottage home, his bark of slender sail,<br>His glassy lake, and broomwood-blossomed vale,<br>Rush on his thought ; he sweeps before the wind,<br>Treads the loved shore he sighed to leave behind .<br>Meets at each step a friend's familiar face,<br>And flies at last to Helen's long embrace,<br>Wipes from her cheek the rapture-speaking tear !<br>And clasps, with many a sigh, his children dear !<br>While, long neglected, but at length caressed,<br>His faithful dog salutes the smiling guest,<br>Points to the master's eyes (where'er they roam)<br>His wistful face, and whines a welcome home.<br> Friend of the brave ! in peril's darkest hour,<br>Intrepid Virtue looks to thee for power ;<br>To thee the heart its trembling homage yields,<br>On stormy floods, and carnage-covered fields,<br>When front to front the bannered hosts combine,<br>Halt ere they close, and form the dreadful line.<br>When all is still on Death's devoted soil,<br>The march-worn soldier mingles for the toil !<br>As rings his glittering tube, he lifts on high<br>The dauntless brow and spirit-speaking eye,<br>Hails in his heart the triumph yet to come,<br>And hears thy stormy music in the drum !<br>And such thy strength inspiring aid that bore<br>The hardy Byron to his native shore—<br>In horrid climes; where Chiloe's tempests sweep<br>Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep,<br>'T was his to mourn Misfortune's rudest shock,<br>Scourged by the winds, and cradled on the rock,<br>To wake each joyless morn and search again<br>The famished haunts of solitary men ;<br>Whose race, unyielding as their native storm,<br>Know not a trace of Nature but the form<br>Yet at thy call, the hardy tar pursued,<br>Pale, but intrepid, sad, but unsubdued,<br>Pierced the deep woods, and hailing from afar<br>The moon's pale planet and the northern star,<br>Paused at each dreary cry, unheard before ;<br>Hyænas in the wild, and mermaids on the shore ;<br>Till, led by thee o'er many a cliff sublime,<br>He found a warmer world, a milder clime<br>A home to rest, a shelter to defend,<br>Peace and repose, a Briton and a friend !<br> Congenial Hope ! thy passion-kindling power,<br>How bright, how strong, in youth's untroubled hour!<br>On you proud height, with Genius hand in hand<br>I see thee 'light and wave thy golden wand.<br>"Go, child of Heaven ! (thy winged words pro-claim)<br>'T is thine to search the boundless fields of fame !<br>Lo ! Newton, priest of Nature ; shines afar ;<br>Scans the wide world, and numbers every star !<br>Wilt thou, with him, mysterious rites apply,<br>And watch the shrine with wonder-beaming eye !<br>Yes thou shalt mark, with magic art profound,<br>The speed of light, the circling march of sound :<br>With Franklin grasp the lightning's fiery wing,<br>Or yield the lyre of Heaven another string<br> “The Swedish sage admires, in yonder bowers,<br>His winged insects, and his rosy flowers ;<br>Calls from their woodland haunts the savage train,<br>With sounding horn, and counts them on the plain—<br>So once, at Heaven's command, the wanderers came<br>To Eden's shade, and heard their various name.<br> "Far from the world, in yen sequestered clime,<br>Slow pass the sons of Wisdom, more sublime;<br>Calm as the fields of Heaven, his sapient eye<br>The loved Athenian lifts to realms on high,<br>Admiring Plato, on his spotless page,<br>Stamps the bright dictates of the Father sage:<br>'Shall Nature bound to Earth's diurnal span<br>The fire of God ; th' immortal soul of man?'<br> "Turn, child of Heaven ; thy rapture-lightened eye<br>To Wisdom's walks, the sacred Nine are nigh:<br>Hark ! from bright spires that gild the Delphian height,<br>From streams that wander in eternal light,<br>Ranged on their hill, Harmonia's daughters swell<br>The mingling tones of horn, and harp and shell.<br>Deep from his vaults the Loxian murmurs flow,<br>And Pythia's awful organ peals below.<br> "Beloved of Heaven ! the smiling Muse shall shed<br>Her moonlight halo on thy beauteous head .<br>Shall swell thy heart to rapture unconfined,<br>And breathe a holy madness o'er thy mind.<br>I see thee roam her guardian power beneath,<br>And talk with spirits en the midnight heath ;<br>Enquire of guilty wanderers whence they came,<br>And ask each blood-stained form his earthly name<br>Then weave in rapid verse the deeds they tell,<br>And read the trembling world the tales of hell.<br> "When Venus, throned in clouds of rosy hue,<br>Flings from her golden urn the vesper dew,<br>And bids fond man her glimmering noon employ,<br>Sacred to love, and walks of tender joy ;<br>A milder mood the goddess shall recall,<br>And soft as dew thy tones of music fall ;<br>While Beauty's deeply-pictured smiles impart<br>A pang more dear than pleasure to the heart—<br>Warm as thy sighs shall flow the Lesbian strain,<br>And plead in Beauty's ear, nor plead in vain.<br> "Or wilt thou Orphean hymns more sacred deem,<br>And steep thy song in Mercy's mellow stream ;<br>To pensive drops the radiant eye beguile—<br>For Beauty's tears are lovelier than her smile ;<br>On Nature's throbbing anguish pour relief,<br>And teach impassioned souls the joy of grief?<br> " Yes ; to thy tongue shall seraph words be given,<br>And power on earth to plead the cause of Heaven:<br>The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone,<br>That never mused on sorrow but its own,<br>Unlocks a generous store at thy command,<br>Like Horeb's rocks beneath the prophet's hand.<br>The living lumber of his kindred earth,<br>Charmed into soul, receives a second birth,<br>Feels thy dread power another heart afford,<br>Whose passion-touched harmonious strings accord<br>True as the circling spheres to Nature's plan ;<br>And man ; the brother, lives the friend of man.<br> "Bright as the pillar rose at Heaven' s command,<br>When Israel marched along the desert land,<br>Blazed through the night on lonely wilds afar,<br>And told the path—a never-setting star:<br>So, heavenly genius, in thy course divine,<br>Hope is thy star, her light is ever thine."<br> Propitious Power ! when rankling cares annoy<br>The sacred home of Hymenean joy ;<br>When doomed to Poverty's sequestered dell,<br>The wedded pair of love and virtue dwell,<br>Unpitied by the world, unknown to fame<br>Their woes, their wishes, and their hearts the same—<br>Oh, there, prophetic Hope ! thy smile bestow,<br>And chase the pangs that worth should never know—<br>There, as the parent deals his scanty store<br>To friendless babes, and weeps to give no more,<br>Tell, that his manly race shall yet assuage<br>Their father's wrongs, and shield his latter age.<br>What through for him no Hybla sweets distil,<br>Nor bloomy vices wave purple on the hill ;<br>Tell, that when silent years have passed away,<br>That when his eye grows dim, his tresses gray,<br>These busy hands a lovelier cot shall build,<br>And deck with fairer flowers his little field,<br>And call from Heaven propitious dews to breathe<br>Arcadian beauty on the barren heath .<br>Tell, that while Love's spontaneous smile endears,<br>The days of peace, the sabbath of his years,<br>Health shall prolong to many a festive hour<br>The social pleasures of his humble bower.<br> Lo ! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,<br>Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ;<br>She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,<br>Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,<br>And weaves a song of melancholy joy—<br>Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy ;<br>No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine ;<br>No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine ;<br>Bright as his manly sire the son shall be<br>In form and soul ; but, ah ! more blest than he !<br>Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love at last,<br>Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past—<br>With many a smile my solitude repay,<br>And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.<br> "And say, when summoned from the world and thee,<br>I lay my head beneath the willow tree,<br>Wilt thou, sweet mourner ! at my stone appear,<br>And soothe my parted spirit lingering near ?<br>Oh, wilt thou come at evening hour to shed<br>The tears of Memory o'er my narrow bed.<br>With aching temples on thy hand reclined,<br>Muse on the last farewell I leave behind,<br>Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low<br>And think on all my love, and all my woe?"<br> So speaks affection, ere the infant eye<br>Can look regard, or brighten in reply ;<br>But when a cherub lip hath learnt to claim<br>A mother's ear by that endearing name ;<br>Soon as the playful innocent can prove<br>A tear of pity, or a smile of love,<br>Or cons his murmuring task beneath her care;<br>Or lisps with holy look his evening prayer,<br>Or gazing, mutely pensive sits to hear<br>The mournful ballad warbled in his ear ;<br>How fondly looks admiring Hope the while,<br>At every artless tear, and every smile ;<br>How glows the joyous parent to descry<br>A guileless bosom, true to sympathy !<br>Where is the troubled heart consigned to share<br>Tumultuous toils, or solitary care,<br>Unblest by visionary thoughts that stray<br>To count the joys of Fortune's better day!<br>Lo, nature, life, and liberty relume<br>The dim-eyed tenant of the dungeon gloom,<br>A long-lost friend, or hapless child restored,<br>Smiles at its blazing hearth and social board ;<br>Warm from his heart the tears of rapture flow,<br>And virtue triumphs o'er remembered woe.<br> Chide not his peace, proud Reason ; nor destroy<br>The shadowy forms of uncreated joy,<br>That urge the lingering tide of life, and pour<br>Spontaneous slumber on his midnight hour.<br>Hark ! the wild maniac sings, to chide the gale<br>That wafts so slow her lover's distant sail .<br>She, sad spectatress, on the wintry shore,<br>Watched the rude surge his shroudless corse that bore,<br>Knew the pale form, and, shrieking in amaze,<br>Clasped her cold hands ; and fixed her maddening gaze:<br>Poor widowed wretch ! 't was there she wept in vain,<br>Till Memory fled her agonizing brain;--<br>But Mercy gave, to charm the sense of woe,<br>Ideal peace, that truth could ne'er bestow ;<br>Warm oil her heart the joys of Fancy beam,<br>And aimless Hope delights her darkest dream.<br> Oft when yon moon has climbed the midnight sky,<br>And the lone sea-bird wakes its wildest cry,<br>Piled on the steep, her blazing fagots burn<br>To hail the bark that never can return ;<br>And still she waits, but scarce forbears to weep<br>That constant love can linger on the deep.<br> And, mark the wretch, whose wanderings never knew<br>Thie world's regard, that soothes, though half untrue;<br>Whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore,<br>But found not pity when it erred no more.<br>Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye<br>Th' unfeeling proud one looks—and passes by,<br>Condemned on Penury's barren path to roam,<br>Scorned by thie world, and left without a home—<br>Even he, at evening, should he chance to stray<br>Down by the hamlet's hawthorn-scented way,<br>Where, round the cot's romantic glade, are seen<br>The blossomed bean-field, and the sloping green,<br>Leans o'er its humble gate, and thinks the while—<br>Oh ! that for me some home like this would smile,<br>Some hamlet shade, to yield my sickly form<br>Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm !<br>There should my hand no stinted boon assign<br>To wretched hearts with sorrow such as mine !—<br>That generous wish can soothe unpitied care,<br>And Hope half mingles with the poor man' s prayer.<br> Hope ! when I mourn, with sympathizing mind ;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wrongs of fate, the woes of human kind,<br>Thy blissful omens bid my spirit see<br>The boundless fields of rapture yet to be ;<br>I watch the wheels of Nature's mazy plan,<br>And learn the future by the past of man.<br> Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time,<br>And rule the spacious world from clime to clime ;<br>Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore,<br>Trace every wave, and culture every shore.<br>On Erie's banks, where tigers steal along,<br>And the dread Indian chants a dismal song,<br>Where human fiends on midnight errands walk,<br>And bathe in brains the murderous tomahawk,<br>There shall the flocks on thymy pasture stray,<br>And shepherds dance at Summer's opening day ;<br>Each wandering genius of the lonely glen<br>Shall start to view the glittering haunts of men,<br>And silent watch, on woodland heights around,<br>The village curfew as it tolls profound.<br> In Libyan groves ; where damned rites are done,<br>That bathe the rocks in blood, and veil the sun,<br>Truth shall arrest the murderous arm profane,<br>Wild Obi flies—the veil is rent in twain.<br> Where barbarous hordes on Scythian mountains roam,<br>Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet shall find a home ;<br>Where'er degraded Nature bleeds and pines,<br>From Guinea's coast to Sibir's dreary mines,<br>Truth shall pervade th' unfathomed darkness there,<br>And light the dreadful features of despair.—<br>Hark ! the stern captive spurns his heavy load,<br>And asks thie image back that Heaven bestowed !<br>Fierce in his eye the fire of valor burns,<br>And, as the slave departs, the man returns.<br> Oh ! sacred Truth ! thy triumph ceased awhile,<br>And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile,<br>When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars<br>Her whiskered pandoors and her fierce hussars,<br>Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,<br>Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn ;<br>Tumultous horror brooded o'er her van,<br>Presaging wrath to Poland—and to man !<br>Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed<br>Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid,--<br>Oh ! Heaven ! he cried, my bleeding country save !—<br>Is there no hand on high to shield the brave ?<br>Yet; though destruction sweep those lovehy plains,<br>Rise ; fellow-men ! our country yet remains !<br>By that dread name, we wave the sword on high !<br>And swear for her to live !—with her to die !<br> He said, and on the rampart-heights arrayed<br>His trusty warriors, few ; but undismayed;<br>Firm-paced and slow ; a horrid front they form,<br>Still as the breeze ; but dreadful as the storm ;<br>Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly,<br>Revenge, or death,—the watchword and reply ;<br>Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm ;<br>And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm !—<br> In vain ; alas ! in vain, ye gallant few !<br>From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew;—<br>Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time,<br>Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a cnme ;<br>Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,<br>Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe !<br>Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,<br>Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career;--<br>Hope; for a season, bade the world farewell,<br>And Freedom shrieked—as Kosciusxo fell !<br>The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there ;<br>Tumultuous Murder shook the midnight air—<br>On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,<br>His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below ;<br>The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way,<br>Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay !<br>Hark ; as the smouldering piles with thunder fall,<br>A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call !<br>Earth shook-red meteors flashed along the sky,<br>And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry !<br>Oh ! righteous Heaven ; ere Freedom found a grave,<br>Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save ?<br>Where was thine arm, O Vengeance ! where thy rod,<br>That smote the foes of Zion and of God ;<br>That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron ear<br>Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar ?<br>Where was the storm that slumbered till the host<br>Of blood stained Pharaoh left thcir trembling coast ;<br>Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow,<br>And heaved an ocean on their march below ?<br> Departed spirits of the mighty dead !<br>Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled !<br>Friends of the world ! restore your swords to man,<br>Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van !<br>Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone,<br>And make her arm puissant as your own !<br>Oh ! once again to Freedom's cause return<br>The patriot Tell—the Bruce of Bannockburn!<br> Yes ! thy proud lords, unpitied land ! shall see<br>That man bath yet a soul—and dare be free !<br>A little while, along thy saddening plains,<br>This starless night of Desolation reigns ;<br>Truth shall restore the light by Nature given,<br>And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of Heaven !<br>Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurled,<br>Her name her nature, withered from the world !<br> Ye that the rising morn invidious mark,<br>And hate the light—because your deeds are dark<br>Ye that expanding truth invidious view,<br>And think, or wish, the song of Hope untrue ;<br>Perhaps your little hands presume to span<br>The march of Genius and the powers of man ;<br>Perhaps ye watch, at Pride's unhallowed shrine,<br>Her victims, newly slain, and thus divine :—<br>“ Here shall tiny triumph, Genius, cease, and here<br>Truth, Science, Virtue, close your short career.”<br> Tyrants ! in vain ye trace the wizard ring ;<br>In vain ye limit Mind's unwearied spring:<br>What ! can ye lull the winged winds asleep,<br>Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep ?<br>No !—the wild wave contemns your sceptred hand :<br>It rolled not back when Canute gave command !<br> Man ! can thy doom no brighter soul allow ?<br>Still must thou live a blot on Nature's brow ?<br>Shall war's polluted banner ne'er be furled ?<br>Shall crimes and tyrants cease but with the world ?<br>What ! are thou triumphs, sacred Truth, belied ?<br>Why then hath Plato lived—or Sidney died ?<br> Ye fond adorers of departed fame,<br>Who warm at Scipio's worth, or Tully's name !<br>Ye that, in fancied vision, can admire<br>The sword of Brutus, and the Theban lyre !<br>Rapt in historic ardor, who adore<br>Each classic haunt, and well remembered shore,<br>Where Valor tuned, amidst her chosen throng,<br>The Thiracian trumpet, and the Spartan song ;<br>Or, wandering thence, behold the later charms<br>Of England's glory, and Helvetia's arms !<br>See Roman fire in Hampden's bosom swell,<br>And fate and freedom in the shaft of Tell !<br>Say, ye fond zealots to the worth of yore,<br>Hath Valor left the world—to live no more ?<br>No more shall Brutus bid a tyrant die,<br>And sternly smile with vengeance in his eye ?<br>Hampden no more, when suffering Freedom calls,<br>Encounter Fate, and triumph as he falls ?<br>Nor Tell disclose, through peril and alarm,<br>The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm ?<br> Yes ! in that generous cause, for ever strong,<br>The patriot's virtue and the poet's song,<br>Still, as the tide of ages rolls away,<br>Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay.<br> Yes ! there are hearts, prophetic Hope may trust,<br>That slumber yet in uncreated dust,<br>Ordained to fire th' adoring sons of earth,<br>With every charm of wisdom and of worth ;<br>Ordained to light, with intellectual day,<br>The mazy wheels of nature as they play,<br>Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow<br>And rival all but Shakspeare's name below.<br> And say, supernal Powers who deeply scan<br>Heaven's dark decrees, unfathomed yet by man,<br>When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame,<br>That embryo spirit, yet without a name—<br>That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands<br>Shall burst the Libyan's adamantine bands ?<br>Who, sternly marking on his native soil<br>The blood,the tears, the anguish, and the toil,<br>Shall bid each righteous heart exult, to see<br>Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free !<br> Yet, yet, degraded men ! th' expected day<br>That breaks your bitter cup, is far away ;<br>Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed,<br>And holy men give Scripture for the deed .<br>Scourged, and debased, no Briton stoops to save<br>A wretch, a coward ; yes, because a slave !—<br> Eternal Nature when thy giant hand<br>Had heaved the floods, and fixed the trembling land,<br>When life sprang startling at thy plastic call,<br>Endless her forms, auiol man the lord of all !<br>Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee,<br>To wear eternal chains and bow the knee ?<br>Was man ordained the slave of man to toil,<br>Yoked with the brutes, and fettered to the soil .<br>Weighed in a tyrant's balance witli his gold ?<br>No !—Nature stamped us in a heavenly mould !<br>She bade no wretch his thankless labor urge,<br>Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge !<br>No homeless Libyan, on the stormy deep,<br>To call upon his country's name, and weep !—<br> Lo ! once in triumph, on his boundless plain,<br>The quivered chief of Congo loved to reign ;<br>With fires proportioned to his native sky,<br>Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye ;<br>Scoured with wild feet his sun illumined zone,<br>The spear, the lion, and the woods, his own !<br>Or led the combat, bold without a plan,<br>An artless savage, but a fearless man !<br> The plunderer came !—alas ! no glory smiles<br>For Congo's chief, on yonder Indian Isles ;<br>Forever fallen ! no son of Nature now,<br>With Freedom chartered on his manly I brow !<br>Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,<br>And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless daiy,<br>Starts, with a bursting heart ; for evermore<br>To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore !<br> The shrill horn blew ; at that alarum knell<br>His guardian angel took a last farewell !<br>That funeral dirge to darkness hath resigned<br>The fiery grandeur of a generous mind !<br>Poor fettered man ! I bear thee whispering how<br>Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Woe,<br>Friendless thy heart ; and canst thou harbor there<br>A wish but death—a passion but despair ?<br> The widowed Indian, when her lord expires,<br>Mounts the dread pile, and braves thie funeral fires.<br>So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh!<br>So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty !<br> But not to Libya's barren climes alone,<br>To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone,<br>Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye,<br>Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh !<br>Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run !<br>Prolific fields ! dominions of the sun !<br>How long your tribes have trembled and obeyed !<br>How long was Timour's iron sceptre swayed,<br>Whouse marshalled hosts, the lions of the plain,<br>From Scythia's northern mountains to the main,<br>Raged o'er your plundered shrines and altars bare,<br>With blazing torch and gory scymetar,—<br>Stunned with the cries of death each gentle gale<br>And bathed in blood the verdure of the vale !<br>Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame,<br>When Brama's children perished for his name ;<br>The martyrsm led beneath avenging power,<br>And braved the tyrant in his torturing hour !<br> When Europe sought your subject realms to gain,<br>And stretched her giant sceptre o'er the main,<br>Taught her proud barks the winding way to shape,<br>And braved the stormy Spirit of the Cape ;<br>Children of Brama ! then was Mercy nigh<br>To wash the stain of blood's eternal dye ?<br>Did Peace descend, to triumph and to save,<br>When freeborn Britons crossed the Indian wave ?<br>Ah, no !—to more than Rome's ambition true,<br>The Nurse of Freedom gave it not to you !<br>She the bold route of Europe's guilt began,<br>And, in the march of nations, led the van !<br>Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone,<br>And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own,<br>Degenerate trade ! thy minions could despise<br>The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries ;<br>Could lock, with impious hands, their store,<br>While famished nations died along the shore:<br>Could mock the groans of felhow-men, and bear<br>The curse of kingdoms peopled with despair ;<br>Could stamp disgrace on man's polluted name,<br>And barter, with their gold, eternal shame !<br> But hark ! as bowed to earth the Bramin kneels<br>From heavenly climes propitious thunder peals !<br>Of India's fate her guardian spirits tell,<br>Prophetic murmurs breathing on the shell<br>And solemn sound that awe the listening mind<br>Roll on the azure paths of every wind.<br> “ Foes of mankind ! (her guardian spirits say;)<br>Revolving ages bring the bitter day,<br>When Heaven's unerring arm shall fall on you,<br>And blood for blood these Indian plains bedew ;<br>Nine times have Brama's wheels of lightning hurled<br>His awful presence o'er the alarmed world ;<br>Nine times hath Guilt, through all his giant frame,<br>Convulsive trembled , as the Mighty came;<br>Nine times hath suffering Mercy spared in vain—<br>But Heaven shall burst her starry gates again !<br>He comes ! dread Brama shakes the sunless sky<br>With murmuring wrath , and thunders from on high,<br>Heaven's fiery horse, beneath his warrior form,<br>Paws the light clouds, and gallops on the storm !<br>Wide waves his flickering sword ; his bright arms glow<br>Like summer suns and light the world below !<br>Earth, and her trembling isles in Ocean's bed,<br>Are shook ; and Nature rocks beneath his tread !<br> "To pour redress on India's injured realm,<br>The oppressor to dethrone ; the proud to whelm ;<br>To chase destruction from her plundered shore<br>With arts and arms that triumphed once before,<br>The tenth Avatar comes ! at Heaven's command<br>Shall Seriswatte wave her hallowed wand !<br>And Camdeo bright, and Ganesa sublime ,<br>Shall bless with joy their own propitious clime !—<br>Come, Heavenly Powers ! primeval peace restore !<br>Love !—Mercy !—Wisdom !—rule for evermore!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Thomas+Campbell">Thomas Campbell</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116991" data-title="The Pleasures of Hope de Thomas Campbell" data-description="Part I./At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow/Spans with bright arch the glittering bills below,/Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,/Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky ?/Why do those clifts of shadowy tint appear/More sweet than..."></div> </div> </div>

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