Forlorn hope

“ Alas! if we murmur at things like these,
That reflection tells us are wise decrees,—
That the wind is not ever a gentle breath,
That the sun is often the bearer of death,
That the ocean waves are not always still,
And that life is chequered with good and ill;
If we know 'tis well such change should be,
What do we learn from the things we see?
That an erring and sinning child of dust
Should not wonder nor murmur, but hope and trust. ”

“ At once my tongue was loosed, my limbs were free,
⁠I burst the casement, and I madly spoke,
And my boy started, wildly looked on me
⁠And shriek'd so fearfully, that I awoke—
To hear the ocean's never varied sound
And the wild sea-mew, wheeling round and round—
Where hope, the sunlight of the soul, ne'er beams—
A broken-hearted exile, even in dreams! ”

“ Ah, the grey Dawn seems more than desolate, And the past night of passion worse than waste, Love but a useless flower, that soon or late, Turns to a fruit with bitter aftertaste. Youth, even Youth, seems futile and forlorn While the new day grows slowly white above. Pale and reproachful comes the chilly Dawn After the fervour of a night of love. ”

“ Who is there, then, with mind and heart influenced by religion, who will not rejoice at opportunities of soothing a dying-bed—removing misery, alleviating pain, and averting want, while preparing for a change of time for eternity? The yet limited chronicles of this infant Institution record many touching instances of courage, encouragement, hope, and salvation, obtained there, while passing through the valley of the shadow of death. The fatal disease gives abundant time for such consolations and such results; the tyrant advances slowly ”

“ A century old the youngest of them, made
⁠Hollow and mournful music in the breeze;
The pale moon shone upon a little nook
⁠Long toil had cleared, where grew the grass and corn,
But thin and poor, and wearing not the look
⁠Of ruddy health, of hope and labour born.
He wore the skins of wolves his shot had killed—
⁠Tens of the thousands that, by night and day,
Devoured his kine, and trampled where be tilled,
⁠Till fear and want had worn his strength away.
Even the low hut—poor shelter!—while he slept,
⁠Shook in the earthquake, or the storm, or rain ”

“ The hectic cheek is as a registered death-doom from which there is no appeal!
Should I not, rather, say that, HITHERTO, it has been so considered:—the Despair engendered by a belief that “all hope” was to be “abandoned,” having—no one can doubt it—largely aided in preventing cure.
The poor sergeant-major! strong and brave as a lion though he was,—a single word had made him feeble as a child. He had defied death, when death assumed appalling shapes; but the memory of his wife’s sufferings was ever a sudden chill upon his heart ”

“ They have no jewels, they have no gold,
But health and truth, and a spirit bold,—
⁠Bold and true as their rocky masses.
As Nature is kind, and pure, and free,
So children of Nature, so are ye,
⁠Ye happy and merry mountain lasses. ”

“ Years of success have taught thee this,—
Dear wife, that duty leads to bliss;
'Tis thine to show to those who toil,
⁠That love can make all labour light;
That fame and favour may not spoil
⁠The mind that thinks and acts aright! ”

“ The friend of my childhood, the hope of my youth,
Whose heart is all pure, and whose words are all truth,
Oh! sweet are the sweet words he whispers to me,
My Aileen, mavourneen, a cuishla machree. ”

“ And wasted sacred hopes and precious tears?
Yet calm thy fears,
For thou canst gain, even from the bitterest part,
A stronger heart.
Has Fate overwhelmed thee with some sudden blow?
Let thy tears flow;
But know when storms are past, the heavens appear
More pure, more clear;
And hope, when farthest from their shining rays,
For brighter days.
Hast thou found life a cheat, and worn in vain
Its iron chain?
Has thy soul bent beneath earth’s heavy bond?
Look thou beyond;
If life is bitter—there for ever shine
Hopes more divine. ”

“ Is that my hope, then?—Sure, the sacred dust Of her that bore me trembles in its urn. Is it in man the sore distress to bear, When hope itself is blacken'd to despair? When all the bliss I pant for, is to gain In hell, a refuge from severer pain? ”

“ To the wish it gives nothing, Each hope is destroyed. I have tasted the fulness of bliss below I have lived, I have loved,—Thy child, oh take now, Thou Holy One, into Thy keeping!" "In vain is thy sorrow, In vain thy tears fall, For the dead from their slumbers They ne'er can recall; Yet if aught can pour comfort and balm in thy heart, Now that love its sweet pleasures no more can impart, Speak thy wish, and thou granted shalt find it!" ”

“ But that effort, at all events, was not needed; the hospital was astir; the sergeant-major was remembered; and the church-bell tolled when Lucy was laid in her father’s grave, in the Churchyard of Old Chelsea.
p. 23L’ENVOY.
The reader of this little book must not close it with a sad aspect. Thank God, there are few griefs without some counterbalancing comforts; and this afflicting subject, so long without hope, is now FULL OF HOPE. The contrasts of life, the lights and shadows of existence, are sometimes so strong as to be absolutely painful ”

“ But, alas! how many human hopes and aspirations are continually doomed to perish unfulfilled; and were it not that “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” all faith, all energy, all life, and all success would be at an end, as then we should know that most of our efforts are futile, whereas now we hope they may attain complete fruition. Yet, on the other hand, we learn that the fruit of dreamy hoping is waking blank despair. We were again in a region of scrubs as bad and as dense as those I hoped and thought, I had left behind me. ”

“ Till he got to telling me chapters of the tale that never ends;
The battle of grief and hope with riches and folly and wrong.
He told how the weak conspire, he told of the fear of the strong;
He told of dreams grown deeds, deeds done ere time was ripe,
Of hope that melted in air like the smoke of his evening pipe;
Of the fight long after hope in the teeth of all despair;
Of battle and prison and death, of life stripped naked and bare.
But to me it all seemed happy, for I gilded all with the gold
Of youth that believes not in death, nor knoweth of hope grown cold. ”

“ This is always the case where the heart fails to accept the lesson taught. By submission to sorrow the sweetest traits of character are developed, as some fruits are brought to perfection only by frost. Misfortune should act upon us or upon our feelings like fire upon old tenements, which are consumed only to be rebuilt with greater perfection. The winds of adversity sweep over the soul and scatter the fairest blossoms of hope. But the blossoms fall that the fruit may appear. So with us, when the flowers of hope are gone, there come the fruits of long-suffering, patience, faith, and love. ”

“ But they made her as proud as a young rose in spring,
⁠And they harden'd her heart against all sorts of men.
Patrick came with his simper, and Dermot with sighs,
⁠And Jerry with jokes, and with blarney came Mike,
And Darby with laughter in both his bright eyes,
⁠And a crowd of the boys bade her take which she like;
But she shunn'd them, the tender, wild, simple, and sage,
⁠And lived by herself while her fairy gift fades;
And this was the prayer of her lonely old age,
⁠"Heaven keep from such fairy gifts all merry maids!" ”

“ The future is more present than the past:
For one look back a thousand on we cast,
And Hope doth ever Memory outlast.
For Hope say Fear—Hope is a timid thing,
Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering;
At least, such Hope as human life can bring. ”

“ Sighs rest thee not, tears bring no ease,
Life hath no joy, and Death no peace:
The years change not, though they decrease,
For hope is dead, for hope is dead.
Speak, love, I listen: far away
I bless the tremulous lips, that say,
"Mock not the afternoon of day,
Mock not the tide when hope is dead!"
I bless thee, O my love, who say'st:
"Mock not the thistle-cumbered waste;
I hold Love's hand, and make no haste
Down the long way, now hope is dead.
With other names do we name pain,
The long years wear our hearts in vain.
Mock not our loss grown into gain,
Mock not our lost hope lying dead. ”

“ Yet that which made the comfort while sorrow lasts, makes the triumph and the rapture when sorrow is dead, and is everlasting, though its office of consolation determines with earth. [273]
'Good hope through grace.' This is the weakness of all the hopes which dance like fireflies in the dark before men, and are often like will-o'-the-wisps in the night tempting men into deep mire, where there is no standing—that they are uncertain in their basis and inadequate in their range. The prostitution of the great faculty of hope is one of the saddest characteristics of our feeble and fallen manhood ”

“ A great, a vivid ray of hope had pierced the darkness of her misery, it had flickered low at first, then had glowed with wonderful intensity, flickered again and finally died down as hope itself fell dying once more in the arms of despair. ”

“ We gaze with eyes too passionate for tears,
Where faith abides though hope be put to flight.
Old hope is dead, the grey-haired hope grown blind
That talked with us of old things out of mind,
Dreams, deeds and men the world has left behind;
Yet, though hope die, faith lives in hope's despite. ”

“ The New York man met Grosvenor with cordial conventionality, saying all the customary things with a warmth that made them seem fresh coinage, but the eyes of the lawyer instantly saw and recognized the haggard traces of anxiety and trouble, and for the first time he realized that Kirk Ranlett could no longer claim the exemptions of youth. Whatever the spirit in which he frolicked, he must pay as a man. ”

“ Sometimes thou servest the devil, and sometimes thou doest business on thine own account. Again, I say, hang thee for an intermeddling imp!
Men talk of the pleasures of hope! have they never felt the misery of hope deferred—the pang of hope crushed? Have they ever estimated the amount of misery chargeable to this self-same hope? Who fathers Ambition, with all its woes, attendant and consequent? Hope. How many dream away their lives in listless vacuity, hoping all the while, that something will turn up! What injuries has Hope not done to youth? ”

“ To say that hope had entirely abandoned him would not be true. Whilst the heart continues to pulsate hope will still be found to live, however faintly, in its throbs, though each moment be heavy with pain, and nothing seem sure but anguish and death. ”

“ These contradictions,—these differences of seeing,—these returns,—this stormy flow and ebb, are so many effects of hope, which plays upon us and never ceases. It is inherent in human nature to hope in adversity for a favorable change of fate, however the appearances may be ill-grounded of an end to its pain and suffering. ”

“ Sometimes for a second hope would flood her with almost painful joy, but inevitably the truth shut down upon her again, and hope died, and she realized afresh that sorrow, stronger than before, was waiting to seize upon her again. ”

“ But, alas! in a deep sorrow, how little do mental acquisitions avail! All the beautiful systems and theories that delighted my intelligence, and filled my thought in my noon of hope and life, have sunk into darkness. How is this? Sometimes I think that all light comes through the heart into the mind; and when love is quenched, behold, there is only darkness; the beauty and life and joy are gone. Ah, woe is me! Have I nothing left?—no internal resources—no wealth of knowledge, with which to minister to this poverty of hope and life? ”

“ That grief has now quieted down, and she was just beginning to accept the inevitable. Your appearance on the scene has revived her old sensations and given her hope—false hope. Yes, before God," he added, speaking with great bitterness, "the hope is false—false as hell! ”

“ And a dreamy sleep o'ertook him,
When a chorus of sweet voices
Sing a song, his heart rejoices,
⁠In the fairy ring.
"Up," it said, "your day's declining,
"Up, and woo her like a man;
"You are far too sad and sighing!" ”

“ What had they to fill the void of their tremendous loss? Surely, not to believe was not to hope, to be for ever without hope was the punishment of the damned, and to live hopeless in the world was to suffer the pains of hell on earth. ”

“ Oh, then the heart is nerved to cope With danger and distress, The very impulse left by hope Will make despair seem less; Then all is life—acute, intense, The thoughts in tumult tost, So reels the mind with wildered sense, It knows not what is lost. But when that shuddering scene is past, When earth receives her own, And, wrench'd from what it loved, at last The heart is left alone; When all is gone—our hopes and fears All buried in one tomb, And we have dried the source of tears, There comes a settled gloom. ”

“ Some of us will be smitten down by illness; some of us will lose our dearest; some of us will lose fortune. Which of us it is to be, and where within these twelve months the blow is to fall, are mercifully hidden. The only thing that we certainly know is that these arrows will fly. The thing we do not know is whose heart they will pierce. This makes the gaze into the darkness grave and solemn. There is ever something of dread in Hope's blue eyes. ”

“ When o'er the soul dark clouds of sorrow lour,
Is Hope; whose tranquil rays serenely shine,
Brightening the horrors of each dreary hour;
Smiling when youth prepares the fancied flower,
And when in age it feels misfortune's blighting power. ”

“ For no message is flashed from the lustreless eyes,
When clos-ed so languid and weary,
And no voice from the darkness re-echoes our cries,
In response to the agonized query!
We gaze at the solemn mysterious shroud
With a vague and insatiate yearning,
And perceive but the sombre exterior cloud,
With our vision of no discerning.
Not a whispering sound, not a glimmer of light,
From that shadowy strand uncertain;
But He who ordained the day and night,
Framed also Death's silent curtain.
Hope.
Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish,
A fond desire which floats before our eyes ”

“ Thanks for a pictured store of thought!
Thus Art works out her great design,
Shapes the rough ore of Nature's mine;
⁠Gives Beauty a perpetual youth;
⁠Bids Virtue teach and never tire;
⁠Shows that a halo shines round Truth ”