Page:Lalla Rookh - Moore - 1817.djvu/109

 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, Over yon plains which night had else made dark,