Hope and Optimism

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Through such souls alone God stooping shows sufficient of His light For us i’ the dark to rise by. And I rise.

Look not thou down but up!

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand.

“Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,” The shade replied— “If you seek for Eldorado!”

Sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom; Lead thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead thou me on! Keep thou my feet: I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.

A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

That thus enchains us to permitted ill— We might be otherwise—we might be all We dream of happy, high majestical. Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek, But in our mind?

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free.

Oh! ever thus, from childhood’s hour, I’ve seen my fondest hope decay; I never loved a tree or flower, But ’twas the first to fade away. I never nurs’d a dear gazelle To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well, And love me, it was sure to die.

Go where glory waits thee! But while fame elates thee, Oh, still remember me!

A poet lies, or that which once seemed he— Oh, lift a thought in prayer for S.T.C.! That he, who many a year, with toil of breath, Found death in life, may here find life in death.

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live.

Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

Where ask is have, where seek is find, Where knock is open wide.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.

When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat; Yet, fool’d with hope, men favor the deceit; Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay. Tomorrow’s falser than the former day.

Long is the way And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all.

Yet I argue not Against Heav’n’s hand or will, nor bate one jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer Right onward.

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Suppos’d as forfeit to a confin’d doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur’d, And the sad augurs mock their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assur’d, And peace proclaims olives of endless age.