Progression Poem by Elizabeth Oakes Smith

Hope on, hope on, O restless heart!
Though dark the hour may be-
For e'en in all thy struggles know
A glory waits for thee !
O keep thee still the dew of youth-
Still hold thou fast unto the truth.

What though the strong desires sent forth
Unequal ends attain-
And thy intensest thought result
That all of earth is vain-
O not in vain, if truth and right
But arm thee with heroic might.

Toil on, for like the pillared stone
O'er which the moss has crept,
And veiled the record there inscribed
While ages round it slept-
Thus, thou mayst on thy tablet read
A truth to meet thine utmost need;

Hast thou, in this unequal strife,
But tendest to a goal,
Whose object realized shall till
The vastness of the soul-
These ardent hopes these wishes high,
Belong to that which cannot die.