Save that 'twas all tranquillity; that reigned
O'er fragrance sound and beauty; all was mute—
Save when a dove her dear one's absence plained
And the faint breeze mourned o'er the slumberer's lute.
XXX.
It chanced, that day, lured by the verdure, came
Zophiel, now minister of ill; but ere
He sinned, a heavenly angel. The faint flame
Of dying embers, on an altar, where
Raguel, fair Egla's sire, in secret vowed
And sacrificed to the sole living God,
Where friendly shades the sacred rites enshround;—(2)
The fiend beheld and knew; his soul was awed,
And he bethought him of the forfeit joys
Once his in Heaven;—deep in a darkling grot
He sat him down;—the melancholy noise
Of leaf and creeping vine accordant with his thought.
XXXI.
When fiercer spirits, howled, he but complained (3)
Ere yet 'twas his to roam the pleasant earth,
His heaven-invented harp he still retained
Tho' tuned to bliss no more; and had its birth
Of him, beneath some black infernal clift
The first drear song of woe; and torment wrung
The spirit less severe where he might lift
His plaining voice—and frame the like as now he sung:
XXXII.
"Woe to thee, wild ambition, I employ
Despair's dull notes thy dread effects to tell,
Born in high-heaven, her peace thou could'st destroy,
And, but for thee, there had not been a hell.