g return to the
country; and the sun of summer, instead of calling back the landlord to
his tenants, and to the harvests of his own lands, sends him forth to
the meagre adventures of continental roads and inns.--_Quarterly Rev._

* * * * *

SOLILOQUY.

THE KING OF DARKNESS.

_On the Fallen Angels._

They're gone to ply their ineffectual labour,--
To sow in guilt what they must reap in woe,--
Heaping upon themselves more deep damnation.
Thus would I have it.--Little once I thought,
When leagued with me in crime and punishment
They fell,--condemned to an eternity
Of exile from all joy and holiness--
And the first stains of sinfulness and sorrow
Fell blight-like o'er their cherub lineaments--
Myself the cause--Albeit too proud for tears,
Yet touch'd with their sad doom, I little thought
I e'er should hate them thus.--Yet thus I hate them,
With all that bitter agony of soul
Which is the punishment of fiends. Alas!
It was my high ambition, to hold sway,
Sole, paramount, unquestion'd, o'er a third
Of Heaven's resplendent legions:--Power and glory
Dwelt on them, like an elemental essence
That could not be destroyed.--I could not deem
That aught could so extinguish the pure fire
Of their sun-like beauty--yet 'tis changed!--
I gain'd them to my wish, and they are grown
Too hateful to be look'd on.--Thus I've seen
The frail fair dupe of amorous perfidy,
The victim of a smile,--by man beguiled--
Won to debasement, and then left in loathing:--
Alas! I cannot leave my fatal conquest!--
Man! would I were the humblest mortal wretch,
That crawls beneath yon shadowing temple's tower,
Under the sky of Canaan; so I might
Lay down this weight of sceptred misery,
And fly for ever from myself and these!
But Pride reproves the wish; and--it is useless;
The unatonable deeds of ages rise
Like clouds between me and the throne of Grace.
I may not hope,--or fear,--still unsubdued,
As when I ruled the anarchy of Heaven,
I stand in Fate's despite,--firm and impassive
To all that Chance, and Time, and Ruin bring.
--In that disastrous day, when this vast world
Shall, like a tempest-shaken edifice,
Rock into giant fractures--as the sound
Of the Archangel's trump, upon the deep,
Bids fall the bonds of nature, to let forth
Destruction's formless fiend from world to world,
Trampling the stars to darkness,--Eve