fable rests. The foundation of my story, therefore, has as little to do with Holy Writ as have the dreams of the later Platomists, or the reveries of the Jewish divines; and, in appropriating the notion thus to the uses of poetry, I have done no more than eatablish 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

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,
Ev'n 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!

B

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 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, ev'n 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;
A creature, to whom light remain'd
From Eden still, but alter'd, stain'd,
And o'er whose brow not Love alone
A blight had, in his transit, sent,
But other earthlier joys had gone,
And left their foot-prints as they went.

Sighing as through the shadowy Past
Like a tomb-searcher, Memory ran,
Lifting each shroud that Time had cast
O'er buried hopes, he thus began :·

FIRST ANGEL'S STORY.

'Twas in a land, that far away
Into the golden orient lies,
Where Nature knows not night's delay,
But springs to meet her bridegroom, Day,
Upon the threshold of the skies.
One morn, on earthly mission sent,
And mid-way choosing where to light
I saw from the blue element-

Oh beautiful, but fatal sight!—
One of earth's fairest womankind,
Half veil'd from view, or rather shrin'd
In the clear crystal of a brook;

Which, while it hid no single gleam
Of her young beauties, made them look
More spirit like, as they might seem
Through the dim shadowing of a dream.

Pausing in wonder I look'd on,

While playfully around her breaking
The waters, that like diamonds shone,
She mov'd in light of her own making.
At length, as slowly I descended
To view more near a sight so splendid,