IV.

Short were those days, and soon, O sons of Heaven!

Your aspect changed for man. In that dread hour,

When from his paradise the alien driven

Beheld your forms in angry splendour tower,

Guarding the clime where he no more might dwell

With meteor-swords: he saw the living flame,

And his first cry of misery was—“Farewell!”

His heart’s first anguish, exile: he became

A pilgrim on the earth, whose children’s lot

Is still for happier lands to pine—and reach them not.