_On the Fallen Angels._
They're gone to ply their ineffectual labour,--
To sow in guilt what they must reap in woe,--
Heaping upon themselves more deep damnation.
Thus would I have it.--Little once I thought,
When leagued with me in crime and punishment
They fell,--condemned to an eternity
Of exile from all joy and holiness--
And the first stains of sinfulness and sorrow
Fell blight-like o'er their cherub lineaments--
Myself the cause--Albeit too proud for tears,
Yet touch'd with their sad doom, I little thought
I e'er should hate them thus.--Yet thus I hate them,
With all that bitter agony of soul
Which is the punishment of fiends. Alas!
It was my high ambition, to hold sway,
Sole, paramount, unquestion'd, o'er a third
Of Heaven's resplendent legions:--Power and glory
Dwelt on them, like an elemental essence
That could not be destroyed.--I could not deem
That aught could so extinguish the pure fire
Of their sun-like beauty--yet 'tis changed!--
I gain'd them to my wish, and they are grown
Too hateful to be look'd on.--Thus I've seen
The frail fair dupe of amorous perfidy,
The victim of a smile,--by man beguiled--
Won to debasement, and then left in loathing:--
Alas! I cannot leave my fatal conquest!--
Man! would I were the humblest mortal wretch,
That crawls beneath yon shadowing temple's tower,
Under the sky of Canaan; so I might
Lay down this weight of sceptred misery,
And fly for ever from myself and these!
But Pride reproves the wish; and--it is useless;
The unatonable deeds of ages rise
Like clouds between me and the throne of Grace.
I may not hope,--or fear,--still unsubdued,
As when I ruled the anarchy of Heaven,
I stand in Fate's despite,--firm and impassive
To all that Chance, and Time, and Ruin bring.
--In that disastrous day, when this vast world
Shall, like a tempest-shaken edifice,
Rock into giant fractures--as the sound
Of the Archangel's trump, upon the deep,
Bids fall the bonds of nature, to let forth
Destruction's formless fiend from world to world,
Trampling the stars to darkness,--Even then,
Like that proud Roman exile, musing o'er
The dust of fallen Carthage, I shall stand,
Myself a solemn wreck, calm and unmoved
Among the ruins of the works of God.
And my last look shall be a look of triumph
O'er the fallen pillars of the deep and sky;
The wreck of nature by my deeds prepared--
Deeds--which o'erpay the power of Destiny.
_Blackwood's Magazine._
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