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The Philosophy of Hope. 
Is Hope then ever so ? 
Or is it as a tree, : 
Whereon fresh leaves unwater’d grow 
For those that faded be? 
Sure Hope can never sink, 
But pheenix-like to rise; 
Nor was it meant to fade and shrink 
From philosophic eyes. 
For some have built of glass 
Their ever-during halls, 
And some are crush’d beneath a mass 
Of marble-pillar’d walls. 
And who may hope to sail 
From peril and from snare, 
When earth beneath the foot may fail, 
And bolts are in the air ? 
But Hope the storm can quell 
With a soft and happy tune, 
Or hang December’s frosty cell 
With figures caught from June, 
For as the shepherd sends 
Sweet tunings to his flock, 
And evermore their progress tends 
Along the winding rock ;— 
So cheerful watcheth Hope, 
In sunshine and in rain; 
So guides us o’er a weary slope 
To brooks upon the plain. 
Then wherefore, should the sage 
Reward it with a sneer, 
Since still upon his splendid page 
It takes no blot from fear ? 
And even unto me, 
Whose hope hath turned to scorn, 
There comes animpulse from the sea, 
A promise from the morn. 
When summer shadows break, 
And gentle winds rejoice, 
From mountain rude—from placid lake, 
There comes a constant voice. 
With a hope and with a pride 
Its music woke of old ; 
And every feeling then replied, 
In tales as fondly told. 
Now illusion aids no more 
The poetry of youth ; 
Yet still, its fabled sweetness o’er, 
It leaves a pensive truth :— 
That tears the sight obscure, 
That sounds the ear betray, 
That nothing ever can allure 
The heart to go astray ! 
Then, Nature, steer me on— 
Thy spirit for my chart ; 
And be my hope secured upon 
A firm and open heart. 
And let me, unendowed, 
Peruse thy simple line, 
And boast, amid a city’s crowd, 
My theories are Thine ! 
——————— ee eee 
