Of his own loved land, at evening hour,

Is heard when shepherds homeward pipe their flocks:
Oh! every note of it would thrill his mind

With tenderest thoughts-would bring around his knees
The rosy children whom he left behind,
And fill each little angel eye

With speaking tears that ask him why
He wander'd from his hut for scenes like these?
Vain, vain is then the trumpet's brazen roar,
Sweet notes of home-of love-are all he hears,

And the stern eyes, that look'd for blood before, Now melting mournful lose themselves in tears!

SWISS AIR.

BUT wake the trumpet's blast again,
And rouse the ranks of warrior men!
O War! when Truth thy arm employs,
And Freedom's spirit guides the labouring storm,
'Tis then thy vengeance takes a hallow'd form,
And like heaven's lightning sacredly destroys i
Nor Music! through thy breathing sphere,
Lives there a sound more grateful to the ear
Of him who made all harmony,

Than the blest sound of fetters breaking,
And the first hymn that man, awaking

From Slavery's slumber, breathes to Liberty!

SPANISH AIR.

HARK! from Spain, indignant Spain,
Bursts the bold enthusiast strain,
Like morning's music on the air,
And seems in every note to swear,

By Saragossa's ruin'd streets,

By brave Gerona's deathful story,

That while one Spaniard's life-blood beats,
That blood shall stain the Conqueror's glory!
But ah! if vain the patriot's zeal,

If neither valour's force nor wisdom's light

Can break or melt that blood-cemented seal,
Which shuts so close the book of Europe's right
What song shall then in sadness tell
Of broken pride, of prospects shaded;
Of buried hopes, remember'd well,
Of ardour quench'd and honour faded?

What muse shall mourn the breathless brave,
In sweetest dirge at memory's shrine?

What harp shall sigh o'er Freedom's grave? O Erin! thine'

IRISH AIR-Gramachree.

THE LOVES OF THE ANGELS.

1823.

PREFACE,

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 1 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 latter 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 ail other Christian theologians, have long ago consigned it.

In addition to the fitness of the subject for poetry, it struck me also as

The error of these interpreters (and, it is said, of the old Italic version also) was in making it di Ayyedoɩ rov Ocov, the dugels of God,' instead of the Sons'-a mistake which, assisted by the allegorizing comments of Philo, and the rhapsodical fictions of the Book of Enoch, was more than sufficient to affect the imaginations of such half-Pagan writers as Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, and Lactantius, who, chiefly among the Fathers, have indulged themselves in fanciful reveries upon the subject. The greater number, however, have rejected the fiction with indignation. Chrysostom, in his twenty-second Homily apon Genesis, earnestly exposes its absurdity; and Cyril accounts such a supposition as eyyus olas, 'bordering on folly. According to these Fathers (and their opinion has been followed by all the theologians, down from St. Thomas to Caryl and Lightfoot). the term 'Sons of God' must be!

understood to mean the descendants of Seth, by Enos-a family peculiarly favoured by Heaven, because with them men first began to call upon the name of the Lord '--while, by the daughters of men' they suppose that the corrupt race of Cain is designated. The probability, however, is, that the words in question ought to have been translated the sons of the nobles or great men,' as we find them interpreted in the Targum of Onkelos (the most ancient and accurate of all the Chaldaic paraphrases), and as, it appears from Cyril, the version of Symmachus also rendered them. This translation of the passage removes all difficulty, and at once relieves the Sacred History of an extravagance, which, however it may suit the imagination of the poet, is incon sistent with all our notions, both philosophical and religious.

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 com. municate the same moral interest to the following pages.

THE LOVES OF THE ANGELS.

'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 birthdays by the sun;
When, in the light of Nature's dawn

Rejoicing, men and angels met
On the high hill and sunny lawn,-
Ere Sorrow came, or Sin had drawn
"Twixt man and Heaven her curtain
yet!

When earth lay nearer to the skies

Than in these days of crime and woe,
And mortals saw, without surprise,
In the mid air, angelic eyes

Gazing upon this world below.

Alas, that passion should profane,
Even then, the morning of the earth!
That, sadder still, the fatal stain
Should fall on hearts of heavenly
birth-

And that from woman's love should fall
So dark a stain, most sad of all!

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 looked, from time to time, To the far sky, where Daylight furled

Creatures 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!1

Of heaven they spoke, and, still more oft,

Of the bright eyes that charmed them thence;

Till, yielding gradual to the soft

And balmy evening's influence--
The silent breathing of the flowers-
The melting light that beamed above,
As on their first fond erring hours,

Each told the story of his love,
The history of that hour unblest,
When, like a bird, from its high nest
Won down by fascinating eyes,
For woman's smile he lost the skies.

The first who spoke was one, with look
The least celestial of the three-
A Spirit of light mould, that took

The prints of earth most yieldingly;
Who, even in heaven, was not of these
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

His radiant wing, their brows sublime
Bespoke them of that distant world-In

Dionysius (De Cœlest. Hierarch.) is of opinion that when Isaiah represents the Seraphim as crying out one unto the other,' his intention is

Him

Heaven's centre falls most dim.

to describe those communications of the divine thought and will, which are continually passing from the higher orders of the angels to the lower

Listening to words, whose music vied
With our own Eden's seraph lays,
When seraph lays are warmed 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 worshipped 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, small,

Beloved and consecrated spot Where Lea was-the other, all

that

The dull wide waste, where she was
not!

But vain my suit, my madness vain;
Though gladly, from her eyes to gain
One earthly look, one stray desire,
I would have torn the wings that hung
Furled at my back, and o'er that Fire
Unnamed in heaven their fragments

flung ;

'Twas hopeless all-pure and unmoved
She stood, as lilies in the light
Of the hot noon but look more
white;-

And though she loved me, deeply loved,
'Twas not as man, as mortal-no,
Nothing of earth was in that glow-
She loved me but as one of race
Angelic, from that radiant place
She saw so oft in dreams-that heaven,
To which her prayers at morn were
sent,

And on whose light she gazed at even,

It is the opinion of Kircher, Ricciolns etc. (and was, I believe, to a certain degree, that of Origen), that the stars are moved and directed by intelligences or angels who preside over them. Among other passages from Scripture in support of this notion, they cite those words of the Book of Job, When the morning stars sang together;' upon which Kircher remarks, 'Non de materia

| Wishing for wings that she might go
Out of this shadowy world below,
To that free glorious element !
Well I remember by her side
Sitting at rosy eventide,
When,-turning to the star, whose head
Looked out as from a bridal bed,
At that mute blushing hour,—she said,
'Oh that it were my doom to be

The spirit of yon beauteous star,1
Dwelling up there in purity,
Alone, as all such bright things are ;-
My sole employ to pray and shine,
To light my censer at the sun,
And cast its fire towards the shrine
Of Him in Heaven, the Eternal One !'
So innocent the maid-so free

From mortal taint in soul and frame,
Whom 'twas my crime-my destiny-
To love, ay, burn for, with a flame
To which earth's wildest fires are
tame.

Had you but seen her look when first
From my mad lips the avowal burst !
Not angry-no-the feeling had
No touch of anger, but most sad-
It was a sorrow, calm as deep,
A mournfulness that could not weep,
So filled the heart was to the brink,
So fixed and frozen there-to think
That angel natures-even I,
Whose love she clung to, as the tie
Between her spirit and the sky-
Should fall thus headlong from the
height

Of such pure glory into sin.
That very night my heart had grown

Impatient of its inward burning;
The term, too, of my stay was flown,
And the bright Watchers near the

throne

Already, if a meteor shone
Between them and this netner zone,

libus intelligitur.'-Itin. i. Isagog. Astronom. See also Caryl's most wordy commentary on the same text.

The watchers, the offspring of Heaven.'Book of Enoch. In Daniel also the angels are ca led watchers: And behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven.'—iv. 13.