Fear Gets Force.

Man must do well out of a good intent;
Not for the servile fear of punishment.

When fear admits no hope of safety, then
Necessity makes dastards valiant men.

None goes to warfare but with this intent -
The gains must dead the fears of detriment.

Thou hast seen many sorrows, travel-stained pilgrim of the world.
But that which hath vexed thee most hath been the looking for evil;
And though calamities have crossed thee, and misery been heaped on thy head,
Yet ills, that never happened, have chiefly made thee wretched.
The sting of pain and the edge of pleasure are blunted by long expectation,
For the gall and the balm alike are diluted in the waters of patience:
And often thou sippest sweetness, ere the cup is dashed from thy lip;
Or drainest the gall of fear, while evil is passing by thy dwelling.
A man too careful of danger liveth in continual torment,
But a cheerful expecter of the best hath a fountain of joy within him:
Yea, though the breath of disappointment should chill the sanguine heart,
Speedily gloweth it again, warme...

Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
    When vanishes each prospect fair,
When the last flickering ray has sped,
    And naught remains but mute despair;
When inky blackness doth enshroud
    The hopes the heart once held in store,
As some tall pine, by great winds bowed,
    Doth snap, and when the tempest's o'er,
Its noble form, magnificent and proud,
    Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more;
    Thus breaks the heart, which sees no hope before.

Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
    That heart is as some ruin old,
With ancient arch and wall, o'erspread
    With moss, and desolating mold;
Whose banquet halls, where once the sound
    Of revelry rang unconfined,
Now, with the hoot of owls resound,
    Or echo back the mournful w...

Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish,
    A fond desire which floats before our eyes;
With lurid aberration, feverish,--
    We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies;
Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees,
Hope still pursues and soothes realities.

Hope, as a mirage on the desert waste,
    Lures the lost traveler, by a vision fair
Of gushing fountains which he may not taste,
    Of streamlets cool depicted on the air;
With tongue outstretched and parched he onward speeds,
But as he moves the phantom scene recedes.

In the foul dungeon or the narrow cell,
    The prisoner doth pace his lonely beat,
And as he treads, his shackles clank a knell
    Responsive to each movement of his feet;
Yet through his grated window, he discerns
The star...