Hooker (_Eccl. Pol._ i.) defines hope as "a trembling expectation of things far removed." [Illustration] ODE ON THE SPRING. The original manuscript title of this ode was "Noontide." It was first printed in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. ii. p. 271, under the title of "Ode." 1. _The rosy-bosom'd Hours_. Cf. Milton, _Comus_, 984: "The Graces and the rosy-bosom'd Hours;" and Thomson, _Spring_, 1007: "The rosy-bosom'd Spring To weeping Fancy pines." The _Horæ_, or hours, according to the Homeric idea, were the goddesses of the seasons, the course of which was symbolically represented by "the dance of the Hours." They were often described, in connection with the Graces, Hebe, and Aphrodite, as accompanying with their dancing the songs of the Muses and the lyre of Apollo. Long after the time of Homer they continued to be regarded as the givers of the seasons, especially spring and autumn, or "Nature in her bloom and her maturity." At first there were only two Horæ, Thallo (or Spring) and Karpo (or Autumn); but later the number was three, like that of the Graces. In art they are represented as blooming maidens, bearing the products of the seasons. 2. _Fair Venus' train_. The Hours adorned Aphrodite (Venus) as she rose from the sea, and are often associated with her by Homer, Hesiod, and other classical writers. Wakefield remarks: "Venus is here employed, in conformity to the mythology of the Greeks, as the source of creation and beauty." 3. _Long-expecting_. Waiting long for the spring. Sometimes incorrectly printed "long-expected." Cf. Dryden, _Astræa Redux_, 132: "To flowers that in its womb expecting lie." 4. _The purple year_. Cf. the _Pervigilium Veneris_, 13: "Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floribus;" Pope, _Pastorals_, i. 28: "And lavish Nature paints the purple year;" and Mallet, _Zephyr_: "Gales that wake the purple year." 5. _The Attic warbler_. The nightingale, called "the Attic bird," either because it was so common in Attica, or from the old legend that Philomela (or, as some say, Procne), the daughter of a king of Attica, was changed into a nightingale. Cf. Milton's description of Athens (_P. R._ iv. 245): "where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long." Cf. Ovid, _Hal._ 110: "Attica avis verna sub tempestate queratus;" and Propertius, ii. 16, 6: "Attica volucris." _Pours her throat_ is a metonymy. H. p. 85. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 33: "Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat?" 6, 7. Cf. Thomson, _Spring_, 577: "From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, The symphony of spring." 9, 10. Cf. Milton, _Comus_, 989: "And west winds with musky wing About the cedarn alleys fling Nard and cassia's balmy smells."