Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/84



The sons of God came upon the earth and took wives of the daughters of men."—Legends of the Talmud.

EAR islands of the Orient, Where Nature's first of love was spent; Sweet hill-tops of the summered land Where gods and men went hand in hand In golden days of sinless earth! Woe rack the womb of time, that bore The primal evil to its birth! It came; the gods were seen no more: The fields made sacred by their feet, The flowers they loved, grown all too sweet, The streams their bright forms mirrorèd, The fragrant banks that made their bed,