Had lost youth's candid and luxuriant grace, A charm as fatal as the first it wore, Pleased less--and yet enchain'd and haunted more. And this the man to whom his heart had moved! Whose hand he had clasp'd, whose child he loved!--he loved! This, out of all the universe--O Fate! This, the dark orb, round which revolved his hate; This, the swart star malign, whose baleful ray Ruled in his House of Life; and day by day, And hour by hour, upon the tortured past One withering, ruthless, demon influence cast! There writhes the victim--there, unmasking, now The invoked Alecto frowns from Arden's brow. O'er that fierce nature, roused so late from sleep, Course the black thoughts, and lash to storm the deep. Love flies dismay'd--the sweet delusions, drawn By Hope, fade ghost-like in the lurid dawn; As when along the parch'd Arabian gloom Life prostrate falls before the dread Simoom, No human mercy the strong whirlwind faced, And its wrath reign'd sole monarch of the waste! IV. The Hours steal on. Like spectres, to and fro Hurry hush'd footsteps through the house of woe. That nameless chill, which tells of life that dies, Broods o'er the chamber where Calantha lies. The Hours steal on--and o'er the unquiet might Of the great Babel--reigns, dishallow'd, Night. Not, as o'er Nature's world, She comes, to keep Beneath the stars her solemn tryst with Sleep, When move the twin-born Genii side by side, And steal from earth its demons where they glide; Lull'd the spent Toil--seal'd Sorrow's heavy eyes, And dreams restore the dews of Paradise; But Night, discrown'd and sever'd from her twin, No pause for Travail, no repose for Sin, Vex'd by one chafed rebellion to her sway, Flits o'er the lamp-lit streets--a phantom day! Alone sat Morvale in the House of Gloom, Alone--no! Death was in the darken'd room; All hush'd save where, at distance faintly heard, Lucy's low sob the depth of silence stirr'd; Or where, without, the swift wheels hurrying by, Bear those who live--as if life could not die. Alone he sat! and in his breast began Earth's deadliest strife--the Angel with the Man! Not his the light war with its feeble rage Which prudent scruples with faint passions wage, (The small heart-conflicts which disturb the wise, Whom reason succours when the anger tries, Such as to this meek social ring belong, In conscience weak, but in discretion strong;) But that known only to man's franker state, In love a demigod--a fiend in hate, Him, not the reason but the instincts lead, Prompt in the impulse, ruthless in the deed.