[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.
II.
'Twas then there lived a captive Hebrew pair;
In woe th' embraces of their youth had past,
And blest their paler years one daughter--fair
She flourished, like a lonely rose, the last
And loveliest of her line. The tear of joy--
The early love of song--the sigh that broke
From her young lip--the best-beloved employ--
What womanhood disclosed in infancy bespoke.
A child of passion--tenderest and best
Of all that heart has inly loved and felt;
Adorned the fair enclosure of her breast--
Where passion is not found, no virtue ever dwelt.
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