[Poems by Fairfield in] The autobiography of Jane Fairfield ::

Queen of the skies! why should the beams
Of thy soft eye so richly glow
O'er scenes that darkest gloom beseems,
As fitting their soul-harrowing woe?
Why should thy smile alike illume
Despair and Hope, and Love and Hate,
The bridal mansion and the tomb,
Hearts full of bliss and desolate?

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Empress of Heaven! oh, thou wert made
For blooming hearts and tearless eyes,
To light the spirit's serenade,
And high-soul'd love's fond ecstacies;
And, when young Time in Eden's bowers
Wore radiant crowns of fragrant flowers,
While innocence with him would rove
In soothing shade of fair-leaved grove,
And love was bliss and truth its own
Blest guerdon in the morning's sight,
When angels looked from Glory's throne
And threw around her robes of light;
Ere woe was born of sin, and crime
Blotted from man's corrupted heart
The fairest name that youthful Time
Had written there with magic art;
Ere the sad hour man's father fell,
And o'er his fall rose shouts from hell,
Thou, sky-throned Isis! from above,
Saw'st nought but pure unconscious love
Beneath the azure sky—whose sun
Smiled on each deed by mortals done.
Alas! thou now art doomed to gaze
Upon a world so dark and fell,
That thy most pure and lovely rays
Reveal man's heart a living hell!

University of Virginia Library

VIII.