one black feather in the breast
Of purest dove.

"Almighty Father, once our friend,
And ready even now to love us.
Thy pitying gaze upon us bend,
And through the tempest-clouds above us
Thine arm extend.

"That so thy children may begin
In lieu of bliss, to earn content,
And find that sinful Eve was meant
Not only for a sin."

_Awhile she ceased; for memory's flow
Had drowned the utterance of woe;
Until a young hind crossed the lawn,
And fondly trotted forth her fawn,
Whose frolics of delight made Eve,
As in a weeping vision, grieve._

VII

"For me, poor me, no hope to learn
That sweeter bliss than Paradise,
The joy that makes a mother yearn
O'er that bright message from the skies
Her pains do earn.

She stoops entranced; she fears to stir,
Or think; lest each a thought endanger
(While two enraptured hearts confer)
That wonderful and wondering stranger,
Come home to her,

"He watches her, in solemn style;
A world of love flows to and fro;
He smiles; that he may learn to know
His mother by her smile.

VIII

"Oh, bliss, that to all other bliss
Shall be as sunrise unto night,
Or heaven to such a place as this,
Or God's own voice, with angels bright,
To serpent's hiss!

"I have I betrayed thee, or cast by
The pledge in which my soul delighted--
That all this wrong and misery
Should be avenged at last, and righted,
And so should I?

"Belike, they look on me as dead,
Those fiends that found me soft and sweet;
But God hath promised me one treat--
To crush that serpent's head!

IX

"Revenge! Oh, heaven, let some one rise,
Some woman, since revenge is small,--
Who shall not care about its size,
If only she can get it all,
For those black lies!

"Poor Adam is too good and great,
I felt it, though he said so little--
To hate his foes, as I can hate--
And pay them every jot, and tittle,
At their own rate.

"For was there none but I to blame?
God knows that if, instead of me,
There had been any other she,
She would have done the same,

X

"Poor me! Of course the whole disgrace,