‘ 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 the morning of the earth!
That, sadder still, the fatal stain Should fall on hearts of heavenly birth — And that from Woman's love should fall So dark a stain, most sad of all!
One evening, in that primal hour, On a hill's side where hung the ray Of sunset brightening rill and bower, Three noble youths conversing lay;
And, as they lookt from time to time To the far sky where Daylight furled His radiant wing, their brows sublime Bespoke them of that distant world —
Spirits who once in brotherhood Of faith and bliss near ALLA stood, And o'er whose cheeks full oft had blown The wind that breathes from ALLA'S throne,
Creatures of light such as still play, Like motes in sunshine, round the Lord, And thro’ 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 charmed them thence; Till yielding gradual to the soft
And balmy evening's influence — The silent breathing of the flowers — The melting light that beamed 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 thro’ endless space, And o'er whose wings the light from Him In Heaven's centre falls most dim. Still fair and glorious, he but shone
Among those youths the unheavenliest one — A creature to whom light remained From Eden still, but altered, stained, And o'er whose brow not Love alone
A blight had in his transit cast, But other, earthlier joys had gone, And left their foot-prints as they past. Sighing, as back thro’ ages flown,
Like a tomb-searcher, Memory ran, Lifting each shroud that Time had thrown O'er buried hopes, he thus began:—
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