Hope

On! maiden of heavenly birth,
Than rubies and gold more precious,
Who earnest of old upon Earth,
To solace the human species!
As fair as the morn that uncloses
Her gates in a region sunny,
Thou openest lips of roses
And utterest words of honey.

When Innocence forth at the portals
Of Sorrow and Sin was driven,
Tor sake of afflicted mortals
Thou leftest thy home in Heaven,
To mitigate Anguish and Trouble,
The monstrous brood of Crime,
And restore us the prospects noble
That were lost in the olden time.

Tranquillity never-ending
And Happiness move in thy train:
Where Might is with Might contending,
And labor and tumult reign,
Thou succourest those that are toiling,
Ere yet all their force hath departed;
And pourest thy balsam of oil in
The wounds of the Broken-hearted.

Thou lendest new strength to the warrior
When battle is roimd him and peril;
Thou formest the husbandman's barrier
'Gainst Grief, when his fields are sterile;
From the sun and the bright Spring showers,
From the winds and the gentle dew,
Thou gatherest sweets for the flowers
And growth for the meads anew.

When armies of sorrows come swooping,
And Reason is captive to Sadness,
Thou raisest the soul that was drooping,
And givest it spirit and gladness;
The powers Despair had degraded
Thou snatchest from dreary decay,
And all that was shrunken and faded
Reblooms in the light of thy ray.

When the Sick on his couch lies faintest
Thou deadenest half of his dolours,
For still as he suffers thou paintest
The Future in rainbow colours:
By thee are his visions vermillioned;
Thou thronest his soul in a palace,
In which, under purple pavilioned,
He quaffs Immortality's chalice.

Down into the mine's black hollows,
Where the slave is dreeing his doom,
A ray from thy lamp ever follows
His footsteps throughout the gloom.
And the wretch condemned in the galleys
To swink at the ponderous oar,
Revived by thy whisperings, rallies,
And thinks on his labours no more.

O, goddess! the gales of whose breath
Are the heralds of Life when we languish,
And who dashest the potion of Death
From the lips of the martyr to Anguish:
No earthly event is so tragic
But thou winnest good from it still,
And the lightning-like might of thy magic
Is conqueror over all ill!