Hope.

This world has suns, but they are overcast;
This world has sweets, but they're of ling'ring bloom;
Life still expects, and empty falls at last;
Warm Hope on tiptoe drops into the tomb.
Life's journey's rough--Hope seeks a smoother way,
And dwells on fancies which to-morrow see,--
To-morrow comes, true copy of to-day,
And empty shadow of what is to be;
Yet cheated Hope on future still depends,
And ends but only when our being ends.
I long have hoped, and still shall hope the best
Till heedless weeds are scrambling over me,
And hopes and ashes both together rest
At journey's end, with them that cease to be.

John Clare

John Clare was an English poet known for his celebrations of the English countryside and lamentation of its disruption. Born in Helpston, Northamptonshire, Clare was initially a farm laborer. His poetry is characterized by its natural imagery and rustic language. Despite periods of fame during his period, Clare spent the later part of his life in an asylum due to mental health issues. His works gained greater recognition posthumously. Clare's major poem collections include "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery" and "The Shepherd's Calendar."

John Clare

Home Yearnings

John Clare, Simple Poetry

The Sailor-Boy

John Clare, Simple Poetry

The Old Shepherd

John Clare, Simple Poetry

The Poet's Death

John Clare, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Instinct Of Hope

Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
'Tis nature's prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E'en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?

John Clare

Hope.

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...

Alfred Castner King

Song Of Hope

O sweet To-morrow! -
After to-day
There will away
This sense of sorrow.
Then let us borrow
Hope, for a gleaming
Soon will be streaming,
Dimmed by no gray -
No gray!

While the winds wing us
Sighs from The Gone,
Nearer to dawn
Minute-beats bring us;
When there will sing us
Larks of a glory
Waiting our story
Further anon -
Anon!

Doff the black token,
Don the red shoon,
Right and retune
Viol-strings broken;
Null the words spoken
In speeches of rueing,
The night cloud is hueing,
To-morrow shines soon -
Shines soon!

Thomas Hardy

Hope

Faith may break on reason,
Faith may prove a treason
To that highest gift
That is granted by Thy grace;
But Hope! Ah, let us cherish
Some spark that may not perish,
Some tiny spark to cheer us,
As we wander through the waste!

A little lamp beside us,
A little lamp to guide us,
Where the path is rocky,
Where the road is steep.
That when the light falls dimmer,
Still some God-sent glimmer
May hold us steadfast ever,
To the track that we should keep.

Hope for the trending of it,
Hope for the ending of it,
Hope for all around us,
That it ripens in the sun.

Hope for what is waning,
Hope for what is gaining,
Hope for what is waiting
When the long day is done.

Hope that He, the nameless,
May still b...

Arthur Conan Doyle

Hope

Men talk and dream of better days
Of a golden time to come;
Toward a happy and shining goal
They run with a ceaseless hum.
The world grows old and grows young again,
Still hope of the better is bright to men.

Hope leads us in at the gate of life;
She crowns the boyish head;
Her bright lamp lures the stalwart youth,
Nor burns out with the gray-haired dead;
For the grave closes over his trouble and care,
But see on the grave Hope is planted there!

'Tis not an empty and flattering deceit,
Begot in a foolish brain;
For the heart speaks loud with its ceaseless throbs,
"We are not born in vain";
And the words that out of the heart-throbs roll,
They cannot deceive the hoping soul.

Hanford Lennox Gordon

To Hope

When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moonbeams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof!

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And f...

John Keats