Wan as the blossom that fell yesterday
From the Alma tree and dies, while overhead
To-day's young flower is springing in its stead.[116]
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,[117]
Over yon plains which night had else made dark,
Those lanterns countless as the winged lights
That spangle INDIA'S field on showery nights,--[118]
Far as their formidable gleams they shed,
The mighty tents of the beleaguerer spread,
Glimmering along the horizon's dusky line
And thence in nearer circles till they shine
Among the founts and groves o'er which the town
In all its armed magnificence looks down.
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