"His beautiful eyes!-they ill beseem the flash,

That blasts, like lightning, in its sheer descent; Tears might have trembled on their long dark lash,A seraph's tears,-whom God's high will had sent, Of wrath the all-unwilling instrument;

Or seraph-rapture might have glistened there,

When forth on messages of love he went,

To snatch the thorn-wreath from the brow of care,

Or bring to waiting hope the promised meed of prayer.”

"Oh, what was that, of which the wreck he wears

Is still so sadly beautiful?

He fell

Below his happy, holy, bright compeers,―
Because the haughty spirit mote not dwell

With a superior essence-I could tell

A tale, not all unlike-for what are we

We mortals, who mistrust-repine-rebel

But dæmons of an humbler pedigree,

Lifting an arm of dust-to combat Deity?"

-Sad musings these!-but who was he, whose breast

Bred them in loneliness, in silence nursed?

Say, who was he ?-Of goodly forms the best,-
High soul and noble bearing; for whom erst
The general roar of acclamation burst,
Hailing the Lord's anointed,-Israel's king,-

Of all her kings the stateliest and the first,-
To whom all eyes looked up-a lofty thing,
By nature formed to claim a nation's worshipping.

Aye he, whose Godlike tone and graceful port
Wrote king upon his forehead, more than all

The flimsy fopperies of a gaudy court,

The purple robe and jewelled coronal:

He,5 freedom's champion-when, by Jabesh' wall, He set his foot on Ammon's haughty neck,—

Or hurled, commissioned by the prophet call,

The delegated bolt of wrath and wreck

Upon thy hapless sons, devoted Amalec!

But he was changed; and long long hours would spend,

Sitting in 'rapt and melancholy mood,

And hold strange converse with some viewless friend:

So said he; and his courtiers trembling stood,
As in a spirit's presence, while the blood

Froze in their cheeks,--but ne'er were they allowed
To catch the unearthly voice :-they only viewed
Their king's wild fit,-now mournful and now proud,-
In tears like chidden child, or laughing long and loud.

All cures were tried :-Philosophy talked long

Of lofty reason's self-controlling power:

:

He frowned, but spake not :-Friendship's silver tongue
Poured mild persuasion on his calmer hour :-
He wept-alas! it was a bootless shower,

As ever slaked the desert:-Priests would call

On heaven for aid:-but then his brow did lower With treble gloom. "Peace! Heaven is good to all;To all," he sighed, "but one: God hears no prayer for Saul."

At length one spake of music,-and he told

How, wandering late in sorrow's vigil pale,

Where Bethlehem's7 towers, in outline dark and bold,
Becrest the heights that close her narrow vale,

He heard wild harp-tones, borne along the gale,
Melting in cadences so soft and slow,

It seemed the very air grew

musical,

To wail his suffering; and he bowed him low,

And hid his face, and wept :-but wept away his woe.

'Twas but a shepherd-boy, whose simple song

Stole on the hush of midnight's deep repose,

What time, reclined his fleecy charge among,

He watched the heavens, till day-break should unclose

Their gates of amethyst.-How oft the foes,

That baffle Reason, own the mild control

Of simple spells, inanimate Nature throws,

The voiceless quiet of the starry pole,

Or sounds, that boast no speech, yet sweetly soothe the soul!

They sent, and sought him out,—the shepherd-boy,

Who chanted to the hills his lonely strain,

In youth's simplicity of grief or joy ;—

And, when that fit returned, and heart and brain
Reeled in the spasm of their delirious pain,
They bade him wake the music of his shell.-

Then scanned he the dæmoniac's face, as fain

To explore its meaning;-'twas a page, where Hell Had written darker things than one like him might spell.

And yet he gazed unblanched,—his innocent eyes

Fixed on those bloodshot orbs,-that iron brow;

Till, in its own despite, with mere surprise,

It half unbent its sternness;-e'en as though

A Seraph, in his walks of love below,

Confronted and rebuked the Evil one.

Oh there is power in the unclouded glow

Of virtue and of innocence alone

To cope with Satan's self, and bid his fiends begone!