Page:Zóphiël; or, The Bride of Seven.djvu/19

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GROVE OF ACACIAS.
5

For nobler use, to tempt the hapless race
Of feeble mortals, that but form a grade
'Twixt spirits and the courser of the chase.
Man, thing of heaven and earth, why, thou wert made,

Ev'n spirits knew not! yet they loved to sport
With thy mysterious mind; and lent their powers,
The good to benefit, the ill to hurt.
Dark fiends assailed thee, in thy dangerous hours,

But better angels thy far perils eyed;
And often, when in heaven they might have stayed,
Came down to watch by some just hero's side,
Or meet the aspiring love of some high-gifted maid.


VIII.

Blest were those days! Can these dull ages boast
Aught to compare? though now no more beguile,
Chained in their darkling depths, the infernal host;[1]
Who would not brave a fiend to share an angel's smile?

  1. ↑ From the cessation of oracles, at the death of the Founder of our religion, the old Christian fathers inferred that the demons who uttered them, were at that time confined.
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