The present of its ills--I'll scorn them and adore.

Then warm the form relentless fate would chill--
Dark lours my night--Oh! give me one embrace!
If every pain I bear
Befit me for thy care,
Come sorrow--scorn--desertion--I can chase
Despair, fell watching for her victim still.





ZOPHIEL.



CANTO I.



I.

The time has been--this holiest records say--
In punishment for crimes of mortal birth,
When spirits banished from the realms of day
Wandered malignant o'er the nighted earth.(1)

And from the cold and marble lips declared,
Of some blind-worshipped--earth-created god,