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;
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 birth—
And 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 Daylight furl'd
His radiant wing, their brows sublime
Bespoke them of that distant world-
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!

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 th' unheavenliest one

I.