rous, and Biblical.

CAIN.

_Lucifer._ Approach the things of earth most beautiful,
And judge their beauty near.

_Cain._ I have done this--
The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest.

_Lucifer._ What is that?
* * * * * * *
_Cain._ My sister Adah.--All the stars of heaven,
The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb
Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world--
The hues of twilight--the sun's gorgeous coming--
His setting indescribable, which fills
My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold
Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him
Along that western paradise of clouds--
The forest shade--the green bough--the bird's voice--
The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love,
And mingles with the song of cherubim,
As the day closes over Eden's walls:--
All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart,
Like Adah's face: I turn from earth and heaven
To gaze on it.

Even those charming children of Nature, Haidee and Dudu, in "Don Juan,"
and the Neuha, in "The Island," scarcely meant to represent more than
the visible material part of the ideal woman he could love if he met
with her--even these charming creatures possess not only the pagan
beauty of form, but also Christian beauty, that of the soul: goodness,
gentleness, tenderness. And it is also to be remarked, that by degrees,
as time wore on, Lord Byron's female types rose in the moral scale,
while still preserving their adorable charms, and their harmony with the
state of civilization wherein he placed them. For instance, his Haidee,
in the second canto of "Don Juan," written at Venice in 1818, is not
worth, morally, the Haidee of the fourth canto, written at Ravenna in
1820. Beneath his pen at Ravenna, the adorable maiden evidently becomes
spiritualized. This may be attributed to the poet's state of mind, for
he was quite different at Ravenna to what he had been at Venice. The
portrait of this lovely child is certainly very charming in 1818, but,
while admiring her spotless Grecian brow, her beautiful hair, large
Eastern eyes, and noble mouth, we can not help remarking something vague
and undecided about her. And even in those fine verses where he says
that Haidee's face belongs to a type inconceivable for human thought,
and still more impossible of execution for mortal chisel, it is still
the beauty of form that he sho