Then warm the form relentless fate would chill—
Dark lours my night—Oh! give me one embrace!
If every pain I bear
Befit me for thy care,
Come sorrow—scorn—desertion—I can chase
Despair, fell watching for her victim still.
ZOPHIEL.
CANTO I.
I.
The time has been—this holiest records say—
In punishment for crimes of mortal birth,
When spirits banished from the realms of day
Wandered malignant o'er the nighted earth.(1)
And from the cold and marble lips declared,
Of some blind-worshipped—earth-created god,
Their deep deceits; which trusting monarchs snared
Filling the air with moans, with gore the sod. [FN#7]
Yet angels doffed their robes in radiance dyed,
And for a while the joys of heaven delayed,
To watch benign by some just mortal's side—
Or meet th' aspiring love of some high gifted maid. [FN#8]
Blest were those days!—can these dull ages boast
Aught to compare? tho' now no more beguile—
Chain'd in their darkling depths th' infernal host—
Who would not brave a fiend to share an angel's smile?
[FN#7] The god who conducted the Hebrews sent a malignant spirit to speak from the mouth of the prophets, in order to deceive king Achab.
[FN#8] It is useless to note this stanza, as two well-known poems have lately been founded on the same passage of the Pentateuch to which it alludes.