Oh, not for love--the deepest Damned must be
Touched with Heaven's glory ere such fiends as he
Can feel one glimpse of Love's divinity.
But no, she is his victim; there lie all
Her charms for him-charms that can never pall,
As long as hell within his heart can stir,
Or one faint trace of Heaven is left in her.
To work an angel's ruin,--to behold
As white a page as Virtue e'er unrolled
Blacken beneath his touch into a scroll
Of damning sins, sealed with a burning soul--
This is his triumph; this the joy accurst,
That ranks him among demons all but first:
This gives the victim that before him lies
Blighted and lost, a glory in his eyes,
A light like that with which hellfire illumes
The ghastly, writhing wretch whom it consumes!
But other tasks now wait him--tasks that need
All the deep daringness of thought and deed
With which the Divs have gifted him--for mark,[1]
Over yon plains which night had else made dark,
- ↑ The Demons of the Persian mythology.
