* * Justum bellum quibus necessarium, et pia arma quibus MORALITY. nulla nisi in armis relinquitur spes. Livy. A FAMILIAR EPISTLE. ADDRESSED TO J. AT—NS—N, ESQ. M. Ř. I. A.? Is there no call, no consecrating cause, Though long at school and college, dozing Approved by Heaven, ordain'd by Nature's laws, On books of rhyme and books of prosing, And copying from their moral pages Though long with those divines at school, Who think to make us good by rule; Who, in methodic forms advancing, Teaching morality like dancing, Tell us, for Heaven or money's sake, Oh! 't is our country's voice, whose claims should What steps we are through life to take : meet Though thus, my friend, so long employ'd, An echo in the soul's most deep retreat ; And so much midnight oil destroy'd, Along the heart's responding string should run, I must confess, my searches past, I only learn'd to doubt at last. Have differ'd in all climes and ages, And two in fifty seurce agree On what is pure morality! "T is like the rainbow's shifting zone, But now I mourn that e'er I knew And every vision makes its own. The doctors of the Porch advise, As modes of being great and wise, That we should cease to own or know The luxuries that from feeling flow. “Reason alone must claim direction, And Apathy's the soul's perfection. Like a dull lake the heart must lie; Nor passion's gale nor pleasure's sigh, Though heaven the breeze, the breath supplied, Fare thee well ! I'll think of thee, Must curl the wave or swell the tide!" Such was the rigid Zeno's plan is To form his philosophic man; Such were the modes he taught mankind But all the flowers were ravish'd too! Now listen to the wily strains, Which, on Cyrené's sandy plains, Why is red the rose's dye? When Pleasure, nymph with loosen'd zone, Because it is thy blush's hue. Usurp'd the philosophic throne; All that's fair, by Love's decree, Hear what the courtly sage's tongue? To his surrounding pupils sung : “ Pleasure's the only noble end To which all human powers should tend, And Virtue gives her heavenly lore, But to make Pleasure please us more! Wisdom and she were both design'd Has been made resembling thee ! To make the senses more refined, That man might revel, free from cloying, Then ost a sage, when most enjoying !" 1 The gentleman to whom this poem is addressed, is the All that 's sweet, by Love's decree, author of some esteemed works, and was Mr. Little's most Has been made resembling thee! particular friend. I have heard Mr. Little very frequently speak of him as one in whom “the elements were so mix ed,” that neither in his head nor heart had nature left any 1 I believe these words were adapted by Mr. Little to the deficiency.-E. pathetic Scotch air " Galla Water."-E. 2 Aristippus. Is this morality ?-Oh, no! this vase confined, The pure, the unfading flower of mind, Must not throw all its sweets away Upon a mortal mould of clay; No, no ! its richest breath should rise In virtue's incense to the skies! While I, in feeling's sweet romance, Look on each day-beam as a glance From the great eye of Him above, Wakening his world with looks of love! THE NATAL GENIUS. A DREAM. But thus it is, all sects, we see, In witching slumbers of the night, That on thy natal moment smiled ; To crown my lovely mortal child. With olive-branch I bound thy head, Heart's-ease plong thy path I shed, Which was to bloom through all thy years; Nor yet did I forget to bind Love's roses, with his myrtle twined, And dew'd by sympathetic tears. Such was the wild but precious boon, Which Fancy, at her magic noon, Bade meto Nona's image pay- How blest around thy steps I'd play! That's heard at distance in the grove; But all be sunshine, peace, and love To bid its roses withering die; Nor age itself, though dim and dark, Should ever quench a single spark That flashes from my Nona's eye! Oh! when I've seen the morning beam THE LOVES OF THE ANGELS. PREFACE. S When, in the light of Nature s dawn Rejoicing, men and angels met 'Twixt man and Heaven her curtain yet! When earth lay nearer to the skies Than in these days of crime and woe, Gazing upon this world below. Even then, that morning of the earth! That, sadder still, the fatal stain Should fall on hearts of heavenly birthAnd oh, that stain so dark should fall From woman's love, most sad of all! This Poem, somewhat different in form, and much more limited in extent, was originally designed as an episode for a work about which I have been, at intervals, employed during the last two years. Some months since, however, I found that my friend Lord Byron had, by an accidental coincidence, chosen the same subject for a drama; and as I could not but feel the disadvantage of coming after so formidable a rival, I thought it best to publish my humble sketch immediately, with such alterations and additions as I had time to make, and thus, by an earlier appearance in the literary horizon, give myself the chance of what astronomers call an Heliacal rising, before the luminary, in whose light I was to be lost, should appear. As objections may be made, by persons whose opinions I respect, to the selection of a subject of this nature from the Scripture, I think it right to remark that, in point of fact, the subject is not scriptural—the notion upon which it is founded (that of the love of angels for women) having originated in an erroneous translation by the LXX, of that verse in the sixth chapter of Genesis, upon which the sole authority for the fable rests. The foundation of my story, therefore, has as little to do with Holy Writ as have the dreams of the later Platonists, or the reveries of the Jewish divines; and, in appropriating the notion thus to the uses of poetry, I have done no more than establish it in that region of fiction, to which the opinions of the most rational Fathers, and of all other Christian theologians, have long ago consigned it. In addition to the fitness of the subject for poetry, it struck me also as capable of affording an allegorical medium, through which might be shadowed out (as I have endeavoured to do in the following stories,) the fall of the soul from its original purity—the loss of light and happiness which it suffers, in the pursuit| of this world's perishable pleasures-and the punishments, both from conscience and divine justice, with which impurity, pride, and presumptuous inquiry into the awful secrets of God, are sure to be visited. The beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche owes its chief charm to this sort of “veiled meaning,” and it has been my wish (however I may have failed in the attempt) to communicate the same moral interest to the following pages. One evening, in that time of bloom, On a hill's side, where hung the ray Of sunset, sleeping in perfume, Three noble youths conversing lay; And as they look’d, from time to time, To the far sky, where Day-light furl'd His radiant wing, their brows sublime Bespoke them of that distant worldCreatures of light, such as still play, Like motes in sunshine, round the Lord, And through their infinite array Transmit each moment, night and day, The echo of his luminous word ! Of heaven they spoke, and, still more oft, Of the bright eyes that charm’d them thence; Till, yielding gradual to the soft And balmy evening's influenceThe silent breathing of the flowers, The melting light that beam'd above, Each told the story of his love, THE LOVES OF THE ANGELS. The First who spoke was one, with look The least celestial of the threeA Spirit of light mould, that took The prints of earth most yieldingly; Who, even in heaven, was not of those Nearest the throne, but held a place Far off, among those shining rows That circle out through endless space, And o'er whose wings the light from Him In the great centre falls most dim. Still fair and glorious, he but shone Among those youths the unheavenliest oneA creature to whom light remain'd From Eden still, but alter'd, stain'd, 'Twas when the world was in its prime, When the fresh stars had just begun Their race of glory, and young Time Told his first birth-days by the sun; 1 See Note. And o'er whose brow not Love alone A blight had, in his transit, sent, But other, earthlier joys had gone, And left their foot-prints as they went. 'Tis not in words to tell the power, The despotism, that, from that hour, Passion held o'er me-day and night I sought around each neighbouring spot, And, in the chase of this sweet light, My task, and Heaven, and all forgotAll but the one, sole, haunting dream Of her I saw in that bright stream. Sighing, as through the shadowy Past, Like a tomb-searcher, Memory ran, Lifting each shroud that time had cast O'er buried hopes, he thus began FIRST ANGEL'S STORY T was in a land, that far away Into the golden orient lies, Where Nature knows not Night's delay, But springs to meet her bridegroom, Day, Upon the threshold of the skies One morn, on earthly mission sent, And midway choosing where to light, I saw from the blue element Oh beautiful, but fatal sight!- Which, while it hid no single gleam More spirit-like, as they might seem Through the dim shadowing of a dream Nor was it long, ere by her side I found myself whole happy days, Listening to words, whose music vied With our own Eden's seraph lays, When seraph lays are warmd by love, But wanting that, far, far above ! And looking into eyes where, blue And beautiful, like skies seen through The sleeping wave, for me there shone A heaven more worshipp'd than my own Oh what, while I could hear and see Such words and looks, was heaven to me? Though gross the air on earth I drew, 'Twas blessed, while she breathed it too; Though dark the flowers, though dim the sky, Love lent them light, while she was nigh. Throughout creation I but knew Two separate worlds—the one, that small, Beloved, and consecrated spot Where Lea was—the other, all The đull wide waste, where she was not! Pausing in wonder I look'd on, While, playfully around her breaking The waters, that like diamonds shone, She mov'd in light of her own making. At length, as slowly I descended To view more near a sight so splendid, The tremble of my wings all o'er (For through each plume I felt the thrill) Startled her, as she reach'd the shore Of that small lake-her mirror stillAbove whose brink she stood, like snow When rosy with a sunset glow. Never shall I forget those eyes ! The shame, the innocent surprise Of that bright face, when in the air Uplooking, she beheld me there. It seem'd as if each thought and look, And motion were that minute chain'd Fast to the spot, such root she took, And like a sunflower by a brook, With face upturn'd—so still remain'd! But vain my suit, my madness vain; I would have torn the wings that hung Unnamed in heaven their fragments flung ;’T was hopeless all-pure and unmoved She stood, as lilies in the light Of the hot noon but look more white;- To which her prayers at morn were sent, To that free glorious element ! In pity to the wondering maid, Though loth from such a vision turning, Downward I bent, beneath the shade Of my spread wings, to hide the burning Of glances which—I well could feel For me, for her, too warmly shone; One side-long look, the maid was goneHid from me in the forest leaves, Sudden as when, in all her charms The moon into his dusky arms Well I remember by her side, The Spirit of yon beauteous star, Alone, as all such bright things are;My sole employ to pray and shine, To light my censer at the sun, And fling its fire towards the shrine Of Him in Heaven, the Eternal One !" and gay So innocent the maid-so free From mortal taint in soul and frame, Whom 't was my crime-my destiny To love, ay, burn for, with a flame, To which earth's wildest fires are tame. Of such pure glory into sin- Is soonest lost, extinguish'd in! sea, Try with her wing sublimer air, While I, a creature born up there, Should meet her, in my fall from light, From heaven and peace, and turn her flight Downward again, with me to drink Of the salt tide of sin, and sink! In summer winds, the young And beautiful of this bright earth. And she was there, and 'mid the young And beautiful stood first, alone; The shadow I that morn had thrown- Of the wild revel I gave way Of desperate gaiety, which they Upon the mists that circle man, Brightening not only earth, the while, But grasping heaven, too, in their span!Then first the fatal wine-cup rain'd Its dews of darkness through my lips, To my lost soul into eclipse, Such fantasies and wrong desires, Haunt us for ever-like wild fires That very night-my heart had grown Impatient of its inward burning; To envoys hither from the skies, It is their hour or wish to rise, And once, too, was so nearly spoken, That my spread plumage in the ray And breeze of heaven began to play When my heart fail'd—the spell was brokenThe word unfinished died away, And my check'd plumes, ready to soar, Fell slack and lifeless as before. Now hear the rest-our banquet done, I sought her in the accustom'd bower, Where late we oft, when day was gone, And the world hush'd, had met alone, At the same silent moonlight hour. Why, why have hapless angels eyes ? in Still did her brow, as usual, turn To her loved star, which seem'd to burn Purer than ever on that night; While she, in looking grew more bright, As though that planet were an urn From which her eyes drank liquid light. yon skies? How could I leave a world which she, How fly, while yet there was a chance, Utterly by that fatal glance ? So there she look'd, moved, breathed aboutWoe, ruin, death, more sweet with her, Than all heaven's proudest joys without ! But, to return—that very day A feast was held, where, full of mirth, Came, crowding thick as flowers that play There was a virtue in that scene, A spell of holiness around, Which would have—had my brain not been Thus poison'd, madden'd-held me bound, As though I stood on God's own ground. Even as it was, with soul all flame, And lips that burn'd in their own sighs, I stood to gaze, with awe and shameThe memory of Eden came Full o'er me when I saw those eyes; And though too well each glance of mine To the pale shrinking maiden proved How far, alas, from aught divine, 1 Seo Note. |