Soon Rupert, 'twixt his bride and him,

A death-cold carcase found;

He saw it not, but thought he felt
Its arms embrace him round.

He started up, and then return'd,

But found the phantom still;

In vain he shrunk, it clipp'd him round, With damp and deadly chill!

And when he bent, the earthy lips

A kiss of horror gave;

"T was like the smell from charnel vaults, Or from the mouldering grave!

Ill-fated Rupert, wild and loud

Thou criedst to thy wife,

Oh! save me from this horrid fiend,
My Isabel! my life!.

But Isabel had nothing seen,

She look'd around in vain;

And much she mourn'd the mad conceit

That rack'd her Rupert's brain.

At length from this invisible

These words to Rupert came:

(Oh God! while he did hear the words,
What terrors shook his frame!)
.Husband! husband! I've the ring
Thou gavest to-day to me;
And thou 'rt to me for ever wed,
As I am wed to thee!

And all the night the demon lay
Cold-chilling by his side,

And strain'd him with such deadly grasp,
He thought he should have died!

But when the dawn of day was near,
The horrid phantom fled,

And left the affrighted youth to weep
By Isabel in bed.

All, all that day a gloomy cloud
Was seen on Rupert's brows;

Fair Isabel was likewise sad,

But strove to cheer her spouse.

And, as the day advanced, he thought
Of coming night with fear:
Ah! that he must with terror view
The bed that should be dear!

At length the second night arrived, Again their couch they press'd; Poor Rupert hoped that all was o'er, And look'd for love and rest.

But oh! when midnight came, again
The fiend was at his side,
And, as it strain'd him in its grasp,
With howl exulting cried,—

. Husband! husband! I've the ring,
The ring thou gavest to me;
And thou 'rt to me for ever wed,
As I am wed to thee!

In agony of wild despair,

He started from the bed; And thus to his bewilder'd wife The trembling Rupert said:

Oh Isabel! dost thou not see A shape of horrors here, That strains me to the deadly kiss, And keeps me from my dear?

No, no, my love! my Rupert, I
No shape of horrors see;
And much I mourn the phantasy
That keeps my dear from me!

This night, just like the night before,
In terrors pass'd away,

Nor did the demon vanish thence
Before the dawn of day.

Says Rupert then, « My Isabel,
Dear partner of my woe,
To Father Austin's holy cave
This instant will I go..

Now Austin was a reverend man,
Who acted wonders maint,
Whom all the country round believed
A devil or a saint!

To Father Austin's holy cave

Then Rupert went full straight, And told him all, and ask'd him how To remedy his fate.

The father heard the youth, and then Retired awhile to pray;

And, having pray'd for half an hour, Return'd, and thus did say:

There is a place where four roads meet,
Which I will tell to thee;

Be there this eve, at fall of night,
And list what thou shalt see.

Thou 'It see a group of figures pass

In strange disorder'd crowd, Trav'ling by torch-light through the roads, With noises strange and loud.

And one that's high above the rest,

Terrific towering o'er,

Will make thee know him at a glance,
So I need say no more.

To him from me these tablets give,
They'll soon be understood;

Thou need'st not fear, but give them straight,
I've scrawl'd them with my blood!⚫

The night-fall came, and Rupert all
In pale amazement went

To where the cross-roads met, and he
Was by the father sent.

And lo! a group of figures came
In strange disorder'd crowd,
Trav'ling by torch-light through the roads,
With noises strange and loud.

And as the gloomy train advanced,

Rupert beheld from far

A female form of wanton mien

Seated upon a car.

And Rupert, as he gazed upon

The loosely-vested dame, Thought of the marble statue's look, For hers was just the same.

Behind her walk'd a hideous form,

With eye-balls flashing death; Whene'er he breathed, a sulphur'd smoke Came burning in his breath!

He seem'd the first of all the crowd
Terrific towering o'er;

Yes, yes," said Rupert, this is he,
And I need ask no more..

Then slow he went, and to this fiend
The tablets trembling gave,
Who look'd and read them with a yell
That would disturb the grave.

And when he saw the blood-scrawl'd name,
His eyes with fury shine;

I thought, cries he, his time was out, But he must soon be mine!>

Then darting at the youth a look, Which rent his soul with fear, He went unto the female fiend, And whisper'd in her ear.

The female fiend no sooner heard,

Than, with reluctant look, The very ring that Rupert lost She from her finger took;

And, giving it unto the youth,

With eyes that breathed of hell, She said in that tremendous voice Which he remember'd well:

. In Austin's name take back the ring,
The ring thou gavest to me;
And thou 'rt to me no longer wed,
Nor longer I to thee.

He took the ring, the rabble pass'd,
He home return'd again;

His wife was then the happiest fair,
The happiest he of men.

SONG.

ON THE BIRTH-DAY OF MRS
WRITTEN IN IRELAND.

Or all my happiest hours of joy,
And even I have had my measure,

When hearts were full and every eye
Has kindled with the beams of pleasure!

Such hours as this I ne'er was given,

So dear to friendship, dear to blisses;

Young Love himself looks down from heaven, To smile on such a day as this is!

Ask the proud train who glory's shade pursue, Where are the arts by which that glory grew? The genuine virtues that with eagle-gaze Sought young Renown in all her orient blaze? Where is the heart by chymic truth refined, The exploring soul, whose eye had read mankind? Where are the links that twined with heavenly art, His country's interest round the patriot's heart? Where is the tongue that scatter'd words of fire? The spirit breathing through the poet's lyre? Do these descend with all that tide of fame Which vainly waters an unfruitful name?

SONG.

WHY does azure deck the sky! "T is to be like thy looks of blue; Why is red the rose's dye?

Because it is thy blushes' hue. All that's fair, by Love's decree, Has been made resembling thee!

Why is falling snow so white,

But to be like thy bosom fair? Why are solar beams so bright?

That they may seem thy golden hair!
All that's bright, by Love's decree,
Has been made resembling thee!

Why are Nature's beauties felt?
Oh! 't is thine in her we see!
Why has music power to melt?

Oh! because it speaks like thee.
All that's sweet, by Love's decree,
Has been made resembling thee!

MORALITY.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE.

ADDRESSED TO J. AT-NS-N, ESQ. M. R. I. A.'

THOUGH long at school and college, dozing
On books of rhyme and books of prosing,
And copying from their moral pages
Fine recipes for forming sages;
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,
What steps we are through life to take:
Though thus, my friend, so long employ'd,
And so much midnight oil destroy'd,

I must confess, my searches past,

I only learn'd to doubt at last.

I find the doctors and the sages Have differ'd in all climes and ages,

The gentleman to whom this poem is addressed is the author of some esteemed works, and was Mr Little's most particular friend. I have heard Mr Little very frequently speak of him as one in whom

had nature left any deficiency.-E.

And two in fifty scarce agree
On what is pure morality!

"T is like the rainbow's shifting zone, And every Ivision 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, Must curl the wave or swell the tide!»

Such was the rigid Zeno's plan
To form his philosophic man;

Such were the modes he taught mankind
To weed the garden of the mind;
They tore away some weeds, 't is true,
But all the flowers were ravish'd too!

Now listen to the wily strains,
Which, on Cyrene's sandy plains,

When Pleasure, nymph with loosen'd zone,
Usurp'd the philosophic throne;
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
To make the senses more refined,
That man might revel, free from cloying,
Then most a sage when most enjoying!

Is this morality?-Oh, no!

E'en I a wiser path could show.
The flower within 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!

But thus it is, all sects, we see,
Have watch-words of morality:
Some cry out Venus, others Jove;
Here 't is religion, there 't is love!
But while they thus so widely wander,
While mystics dream, and doctors ponder,
And in dialectics firm,
some,
Seek virtue in a middle term;
While thus they strive, in Heaven's defiance,
To chain morality with science;
The plain good man, whose actions teach
More virtue than a sect can preach,
Pursues his course, unsagely blest,
His tutor whispering in his breast:

Nor could he act a purer part,
Though he had Tully all by heart;
And when he drops the tear on woe,
He little knows or cares to know
That Epictetus blamed that tear,
By Heaven approved, to virtue dear!

Oh! when I've seen the morning beam
Floating within the dimpled stream,
While Nature, wakening from the night,
Has just put on her robes of light,
Have I, with cold optician's gaze,
Explored the doctrine of those rays?
No, pedants, I have left to you
Nicely to separate hue from hue:
Go, give that moment up to art,
When Heaven and Nature claim the heart;
And dull to all their best attraction,
Go-measure angles of refraction!
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!

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 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 a 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.

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 birth-days by the sun;

1 See Note.

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, 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!

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 influence-
The silent breathing of the flowers-
The melting light that beam'd 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 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 one-
A creature to whom light remain'd
From Eden still, but alter'd, stain'd,