Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be Blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rest and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n.
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.
What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!