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JOAN OF ARC.
"These are the Dæmons that pervert the powerOf Love," said Theodore. "The time was once 825When Love and Happiness went hand in hand,In that blest aera of the infant worldEre man had learnt to bow the knee to man.Was there a youth whom warm affection fill'd,He spake his honest heart; the earliest fruits 830His toil produced, the sweetest flowers that deck'dThe sunny bank, he gather'd for the maid,Nor she disdain'd the gift—for Vice not yetHad burst the dungeons of her hell, and rear'dThose artificial boundaries that divide 835Man from his species. State of blessedness!Till that ill-omen'd hour when Cain's stern sonDelved in the bowels of the earth for gold,Accursed bane of virtue! of such forceAs poets feign dwelt in the Gorgon's locks, 840Which whoso saw, felt instant the life-bloodCold curdle in his veins, the creeping fleshGrew stiff with horror, and the heart forgot

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