Hope springs eternal

I know that in the last couple of weeks, I haven't been contributing a lot of my own ideas here -- mainly just pasting in occasional clippings that I find interesting. Things have been a little bit more hectic than usual. I'm chasing down the last few weeks of a death march software development project at work, and also making plans to attend a conference in Las Vegas later in June (perhaps I'll talk more about that here in a few weeks.) In other words, the situation is about normal for someone in my line of work, but I am hoping for things to let up soon.

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.

- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man