Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848

He sat upon a car, (and the large pearl,Once cradled in it, glimmered now without,)Bound midway on two serpents' backs, that curlIn silent swiftness as he glides about.A shell, 'twas first in liquid amber wet,Then ere the fragrant cement hardened round,All o'er with large and precious stones 'twas setBy skillful Tsavaven, or made or found.The reins seemed pliant crystal (but their strengthHad matched his earthly mother's silken band)And, flecked with rubies, flowed in ample length,Like sparkles o'er Tahathyam's beauteous hand.The reptiles, in their fearful beauty, drew,As if from love, like steeds of Araby;Like blood of lady's lip their scarlet hue;Their scales so bright and sleek, 'twas pleasure but to see,With open mouths, as proud to show the bit,They raise their heads, and arch their necks – (with eyeAs bright as if with meteor fire 'twere lit;)And dart their barbed tongues, 'twixt fangs of ivory.These, when the quick advancing sprites they sawFurl their swift wings, and tread with angel graceThe smooth, fair pavement, checked their speed in awe,And glided far aside as if to give them space.

The errand of the angels is made known to the sovereign of this interior and resplendent world, and upon conditions the precious elixir is promised; but first Zophiël and Phraërion are ushered through sparry portals to a banquet.

High towered the palace and its massive pile,Made dubious if of nature or of art,So wild and so uncouth; yet, all the while,Shaped to strange grace in every varying part.And groves adorned it, green in hue, and bright,As icicles about a laurel-tree;And danced about their twigs a wonderous light;Whence came that light so far beneath the sea?Zophiël looked up to know, and to his viewThe vault scarce seemed less vast than that of day;No rocky roof was seen; a tender blueAppeared, as of the sky, and clouds about it play:And, in the midst, an orb looked as 'twere meantTo shame the sun, it mimicked him so well.But ah! no quickening, grateful warmth it sent;Cold as the rock beneath, the paly radiance fell.Within, from thousand lamps the lustre strays.Reflected back from gems about the wall;And from twelve dolphin shapes a fountain plays,Just in the centre of a spacious hall;But whether in the sunbeam formed to sport,These shapes once lived in supleness and pride,And then, to decorate this wonderous court,Were stolen from the waves and petrified;Or, moulded by some imitative gnome,And scaled all o'er with gems, they were but stone,Casting their showers and rainbows 'neath the dome.To man or angel's eye might not be known.No snowy fleece in these sad realms was found,Nor silken ball by maiden loved so well;But ranged in lightest garniture around,In seemly folds, a shining tapestry fell.And fibres of asbestos, bleached in fire,And all with pearls and sparkling gems o'erflecked,Of that strange court composed the rich attire,And such the cold, fair form of sad Tahathyam decked.

Gifted with every pleasing endowment, in possession of an elixir of which a drop perpetuates life and youth, surrounded by friends of his own choice, who are all anxious to please and amuse him, the gnome feels himself inferior in happiness to the lowest of mortals. His sphere is confined, his high powers useless, for he is without the "last, best gift of God to man," and there is no object on which he can exercise his benevolence. The feast is described with the terse beauty which marks all the canto, and at its close —

The banquet-cups, of many a hue and shape,Bossed o'er with gems, were beautiful to view;But, for the madness of the vaunted grape,Their only draught was a pure limpid dew,The spirits while they sat in social guise,Pledging each goblet with an answering kiss,Marked many a gnome conceal his bursting sighs;And thought death happier than a life like this.But they had music; at one ample sideOf the vast arena of that sparkling hall,Fringed round with gems, that all the rest outvied.In form of canopy, was seen to fallThe stony tapestry, over what, at first,An altar to some deity appeared;But it had cost full many a year to adjustThe limpid crystal tubes that 'neath uprearedTheir different lucid lengths; and so completeTheir wondrous 'rangement, that a tuneful gnomeDrew from them sounds more varied, clear, and sweet,Than ever yet had rung in any earthly dome.Loud, shrilly, liquid, soft; at that quick touchSuch modulation wooed his angel earsThat Zophiël wondered, started from his couchAnd thought upon the music of the spheres.

But Zophiël lingers with ill-dissembled impatience and Tahathyam leads the way to where the elixir of life is to be surrendered.

Soon through the rock they wind; the draught divineWas hidden by a veil the king alone might lift.Cephroniel's son, with half-averted faceAnd faltering hand, that curtain drew, and showed,Of solid diamond formed, a lucid vase;And warm within the pure elixir glowed;Bright red, like flame and blood, (could they so meet,)Ascending, sparkling, dancing, whirling, everIn quick perpetual movement; and of heatSo high, the rock was warm beneath their feet,(Yet heat in its intenseness hurtful never,)Even to the entrance of the long arcadeWhich led to that deep shrine, in the rock's breastAs far as if the half-angel were afraidTo know the secret he himself possessed.Tahathyam filled a slip of spar, with dread,As if stood by and frowned some power divine;Then trembling, as he turned to Zophiël, said,"But for one service shall thou call it thine:Bring me a wife; as I have named the way;(I will not risk destruction save for love!)Fair-haired and beauteous like my mother; say —Plight me this pact; so shalt thou bear above,For thine own purpose, what has here been keptSince bloomed the second age, to angels dear.Bursting from earth's dark womb, the fierce wave sweptOff every form that lived and loved, while here,Deep hidden here, I still lived on and wept."

Great pains have evidently been taken to have every thing throughout the work in keeping. Most of the names have been selected for their particular meaning. Tahathyam and his retinue appear to have been settled in their submarine dominion before the great deluge that changed the face of the earth, as is intimated in the lines last quoted; and as the accounts of that judgment, and of the visits and communications of angels connected with it, are chiefly in Hebrew, they have names from that language. It would have been better perhaps not to have called the persons of the third canto "gnomes," as at this word one is reminded of all the varieties of the Rosicrucian system, of which Pope has so well availed himself in the Rape of the Lock, which sprightly production has been said to be derived, though remotely, from Jewish legends of fallen angels. Tahathyam can be called gnome only on account of the retreat to which his erring father has consigned him.

The spirits leave the cavern, and Zophiël exults a moment, as if restored to perfect happiness. But there is no way of bearing his prize to the earth except through the most dangerous depths of the sea.

Zophiël, with toil severe,But bliss in view, through the thrice murky night,Sped swiftly on. A treasure now more dearHe had to guard, than boldest hope had daredTo breathe for years; but rougher grew the way;And soft Phraërion, shrinking back and scaredAt every whirling depth, wept for his flowers and day.Shivered, and pained, and shrieking, as the wavesWildly impel them 'gainst the jutting rocks;Not all the care and strength of Zophiël savesHis tender guide from half the wildering shocksHe bore. The calm, which favored their descent,And bade them look upon their task as o'er,Was past; and now the inmost earth seemed rentWith such fierce storms as never raged before.Of a long mortal life had the whole painEssenced in one consummate pang, been borne,Known, and survived, its still would be in vainTo try to paint the pains felt by these sprites forlorn.The precious drop closed in its hollow spar,Between his lips Zophiël in triumph bore.Now, earth and sea seem shaken! Dashed afarHe feels it part; – 'tis dropt; – the waters roar,He sees it in a sable vortex whirling,Formed by a cavern vast, that 'neath the sea,Sucks the fierce torrent in.

The furious storm has been raised by the power of his betrayer and persecutor, and in gloomy desperation Zophiël rises with the frail Phraërion to the upper air:

Black clouds, in mass deform,Were frowning; yet a moment's calm was there,As it had stopped to breathe awhile the storm.Their white feet pressed the desert sod; they shookFrom their bright locks the briny drops; nor stayedZophiël on ills, present or past, to look.

But his flight toward Medea is stayed by a renewal of the tempest —

Loud and more loud the blast; in mingled gyre,Flew leaves and stones; and with a deafening crashFell the uprooted trees; heaven seemed on fire —Not, as 'tis wont, with intermitting flash,But, like an ocean all of liquid flame,The whole broad arch gave one continuous glare,While through the red light from their prowling cameThe frighted beasts, and ran, but could not find a lair.

At length comes a shock, as if the earth crashed against some other planet, and they are thrown amazed and prostrate upon the heath. Zophiël,

Too fierce for fear, uprose; yet ere for flight in a moodServed his torn wings, a form before him stoodIn gloomy majesty. Like starless night,A sable mantle fell in cloudy foldFrom its stupendous breast; and as it trodThe pale and lurid light at distance rolledBefore its princely feet, receding on the sod.

The interview between the bland spirit and the prime cause of his guilt is full of the energy of passion, and the rhetoric of the conversation has a masculine beauty of which Mrs. Brooks alone of all the poets of her sex is capable.

Zophiël returns to Medea and the drama draws to a close, which is painted with consummate art. Egla wanders alone at twilight in the shadowy vistas of a grove, wondering and sighing at the continued absence of the enamored angel, who approaches unseen while she sings a strain that he had taught her.

His wings were folded o'er his eyes; severeAs was the pain he'd borne from wave and wind,The dubious warning of that being drear,Who met him in the lightning, to his mindWas torture worse; a dark presentimentCame o'er his soul with paralyzing chill,As when Fate vaguely whispers her intentTo poison mortal joy with sense of coming ill.He searched about the grove with all the careOf trembling jealousy, as if to traceBy track or wounded flower some rival there;And scarcely dared to look upon the faceOf her he loved, lest it some tale might tellTo make the only hope that soothed him vain:He hears her notes in numbers die and swell,But almost fears to listen to the strainHimself had taught her, lest some hated nameHad been with that dear gentle air enwreathed.While he was far; she sighed – he nearer came,Oh, transport! Zophiël was the name she breathed.

He saw her – but

Paused, ere he would advance, for very bliss.The joy of a whole mortal life he feltIn that one moment. Now, too long unseen,He fain had shown his beauteous form, and kneltBut while he still delayed, a mortal rushed between.

This scene is in the sixth canto. In the fifth, which is occupied almost entirely by mortals, and bears a closer relation than the others to the chief works in narrative and dramatic poetry, are related the adventures of Zameia, which, with the story of her death, following the last extract, would make a fine tragedy. Her misfortunes are simply told by an aged attendant who had fled with her in pursuit of Meles, whom she had seen and loved in Babylon. At the feast of Venus Mylitta,

Full in the midst, and taller than the rest,Zameia stood distinct, and not a sighDisturbed the gem that sparkled on her breast;Her oval cheek was heightened to a dyeThat shamed the mellow vermeil of the wreathWhich in her jetty locks became her well,And mingled fragrance with her sweeter breath,The while her haughty lips more beautifully swellWith consciousness of every charm's excess;While with becoming scorn she turned her faceFrom every eye that darted its caress,As if some god alone might hope for her embrace.

Again she is discovered, sleeping, by the rocky margin of a river:

Pallid and worn, but beautiful and young,Though marked her charms by wildest passion's trace;Her long round arms, over a fragment flung,From pillow all too rude protect a face,Whose dark and high arched brows gave to the thoughtTo deem what radiance once they towered above;But all its proudly beauteous outline taughtThat anger there had shared the throne of love.

It was Zameia that rushed between Zophiël and Egla, and that now with quivering lip, disordered hair, and eye gleaming with frenzy, seized her arm, reproached her with the murder of Meles, and attempted to kill her. But as her dagger touches the white robe of the maiden her arm is arrested by some unseen power, and she falls dead at Egla's feet. Reproached by her own handmaid and by the aged attendant of the princess, Egla feels all the horrors of despair, and, beset with evil influences, she seeks to end her own life, but is prevented by the timely appearance of Raphael, in the character of a traveler's guide, leading Helon, a young man of her own nation and kindred who has been living unknown at Babylon, protected by the same angel, and destined to be her husband; and to the mere idea of whose existence, imparted to her in a mysterious and vague manner by Raphael, she has remained faithful from her childhood.

Zophiël, who by the power of Lucifer has been detained struggling in the grove, is suffered once more to enter the presence of the object of his affection. He sees her supported in the arms of Helon, whom he makes one futile effort to destroy, and then is banished forever. The emissaries of his immortal enemy pursue the baffled seraph to his place of exile, and by their derision endeavor to augment his misery,

And when they fled he hid him in a caveStrewn with the bones of some sad wretch who there,Apart from men, had sought a desert grave,And yielded to the demon of despair.There beauteous Zophiël, shrinking from the day,Envying the wretch that so his life had ended,Wailed his eternity;

But, at last, is visited by Raphael, who gives him hopes of restoration to his original rank in heaven.

The concluding canto is entitled "The Bridal of Helon," and in the following lines it contains much of the author's philosophy of life:

The bard has sung, God never formed a soulWithout its own peculiar mate, to meetIts wandering half, when ripe to crown the wholeBright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete!But thousand evil things there are that hateTo look on happiness; these hurt, impede,And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate,Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine and pant and bleed.And as the dove to far Palmyra flying,From where her native founts of Antioch beam,Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing,Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream;So many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring,Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed,Suffers, recoils, then, thirsty and despairingOf what it would, descends and sips the nearest draught.

On consulting "Zophiël," it will readily be seen that the passages here extracted have not been chosen for their superior poetical merit. It has simply been attempted by quotations and a running commentary to convey a just impression of the scope and character of the work. There is not perhaps in the English language a poem containing a greater variety of thought, description and incident, and though the author did not possess in an eminent degree the constructive faculty, there are few narratives that are conducted with more regard to unities, or with more simplicity and perspicuity.

Though characterized by force and even freedom of expression, it does not contain an impure or irreligious sentiment. Every page is full of passion, but passion subdued and chastened by refinement and delicacy. Several of the characters are original and splendid creations. Zophiël seems to us the finest fallen angel that has come from the hand of a poet. Milton's outcasts from heaven are utterly depraved and abraded of their glory; but Zophiël has traces of his original virtue and beauty, and a lingering hope of restoration to the presence of the Divinity. Deceived by the specious fallacies of an immortal like himself, and his superior in rank, he encounters the blackest perfidy in him for whom so much had been forfeited, and the blight of every prospect that had lured his fancy or ambition. Egla, though one of the most important characters in the poem, is much less interesting. She is represented as heroically consistent, except when given over for a moment to the malice of infernal emissaries. In her immediate reception of Helon as a husband, she is constant to a long cherished idea, and fulfills the design of her guardian spirit, or it would excite some wonder that Zophiël was worsted in such competition. It will be perceived upon a careful examination that the work is in admirable keeping, and that the entire conduct of its several persons bears a just relation to their characters and position.

Mrs. Brooks returned to the United States, and her son being now a student in the military academy, she took up her residence in the vicinity of West Point, where, with occasional intermissions in which she visited her plantation in Cuba or traveled in the United States, she remained until 1839. Her marked individuality, the variety, beauty and occasional splendor of her conversation, made her house a favorite resort of the officers of the academy, and of the most accomplished persons who frequented that romantic neighborhood, by many of whom she will long be remembered with mingled affection and admiration.

In 1834 she caused to be published in Boston an edition of "Zophiël," for the benefit of the Polish exiles who were thronging to this country after their then recent struggle for freedom. There were at that time too few readers among us of sufficiently cultivated and independent taste to appreciate a work of art which time or accident had not commended to the popular applause, and "Zophiël" scarcely anywhere excited any interest or attracted any attention. At the end of a month but about twenty copies had been sold, and, in a moment of disappointment, Mrs. Brooks caused the remainder of the impression to be withdrawn from the market. The poem has therefore been little read in this country, and even the title of it would have remained unknown to the common reader of elegant literature but for occasional allusions to it by Southey and other foreign critics. 2

In the summer of 1843, while Mrs. Brooks was residing at Fort Columbus, in the bay of New York, – a military post at which her son, Captain Horace Brooks, was stationed several years – she had printed for private circulation the remarkable little work to which allusion has already been made, entitled "Idomen, or the Vale of the Yumuri." It is in the style of a romance, but contains little that is fictitious except the names of the characters. The account which Idomen gives of her own history is literally true, except in relation to an excursion to Niagara, which occurred in a different period of the author's life. It is impossible to read these interesting "confessions" without feeling a profound interest in the character which they illustrate; a character of singular strength, dignity and delicacy, subjected to the severest tests, and exposed to the most curious and easy analysis. "To see the inmost soul of one who bore all the impulse and torture of self-murder without perishing, is what can seldom be done: very few have memories strong enough to retain a distinct impression of past suffering, and few, though possessed of such memories, have the power of so describing their sensations as to make them apparent to another." "Idomen" will possess an interest and value as a psychological study, independent of that which belongs to it as a record of the experience of so eminent a poet.

Mrs. Brooks was anxious to have published an edition of all her writings, including "Idomen," before leaving New York, and she authorized me to offer gratuitously her copyrights to an eminent publishing house for that purpose. In the existing condition of the copyright laws, which should have been entitled acts for the discouragement of a native literature, she was not surprised that the offer was declined, though indignant that the reason assigned should have been that they were "of too elevated a character to sell." Writing to me soon afterward she observed, "I do not think any thing from my humble imagination can be 'too elevated,' or elevated enough, for the public as it really is in these North American States… In the words of poor Spurzheim, (uttered to me a short time before his death, in Boston,) I solace myself by saying, 'Stupidity! stupidity! the knowledge of that alone has saved me from misanthropy.'"

In December, 1843, Mrs. Brooks sailed the last time from her native country for the Island of Cuba. There, on her coffee estate, Hermita, she renewed for a while her literary labors. The small stone building, smoothly plastered, with a flight of steps leading to its entrance, in which she wrote some of the cantos of "Zophiël," is described by a recent traveler 3 as surrounded by alleys of "palms, cocoas, and oranges, interspersed with the tamarind, the pomegranate, the mangoe, and the rose-apple, with a back ground of coffee and plantains covering every portion of the soil with their luxuriant verdure. I have often passed it," he observes, "in the still night, when the moon was shining brightly, and the leaves of the cocoa and palm threw fringe-like shadows on the walls and the floor, and the elfin lamps of the cocullos swept through the windows and door, casting their lurid, mysterious light on every object, while the air was laden with mingled perfume from the coffee and orange, and the tube-rose and night-blooming ceres, and have thought that no fitter birth-place could be found for the images she has created."

Her habits of composition were peculiar. With an almost unconquerable aversion to the use of the pen, especially in her later years, it was her custom to finish her shorter pieces, and entire cantos of longer poems, before committing a word of them to paper. She had long meditated, and had partly composed, an epic under the title of "Beatriz, the Beloved of Columbus," and when transmitting to me the MS. of "The Departed," in August, 1844, she remarked: "When I have written out my 'Vistas del Infierno' and one other short poem, I hope to begin the penning of the epic I have so often spoken to you of; but when or whether it will ever be finished, Heaven alone can tell." I have not learned whether this poem was written, but when I heard her repeat passages of it, I thought it would be a nobler work than "Zophiël."

Mrs. Brooks died at Patricio, in Cuba, near the close of December, 1844.

I have no room for particular criticism of her minor poems. They will soon I trust be given to the public in a suitable edition, when it will be discovered that they are heart-voices, distinguished for the same fearlessness of thought and expression which is illustrated by the work which has been considered in this brief reviewal.

The accompanying portrait is from a picture by Mr. Alexander, of Boston, and though the engraver has very well preserved the details and general effect of the painting, it does little justice to the fine intellectual expression of the subject. It was a fancy of Mr. Southey's that induced her to wear in her hair the passion-flower, which that poet deemed the fittest emblem of her nature.

THE CRUISE OF THE RAKER

A TALE OF THE WAR OF 1812-15BY HENRY A. CLARK

CHAPTER I

The Departure of the Privateer

It was a dark and cloudy afternoon near the close of the war of 1812-15. A little vessel was scudding seaward before a strong sou'wester, which lashed the bright waters of the Delaware till its breast seemed a mimic ocean, heaving and swelling with tiny waves. As the sky and sea grew darker and darker in the gathering shades of twilight, the little bark rose upon the heavy swell of the ocean, and meeting Cape May on its lee-beam, shot out upon the broad waste of waters, alone in its daring course, seeming like the fearless bird which spreads its long wings amid the fury of the storm and the darkness of the cloud.

Upon the deck, near the helm, stood the captain, whom we introduce to our readers as George Greene, captain of the American privater, Raker. He was a weather-bronzed, red-cheeked, sturdy-built personage, with a dark-blue eye, the same in color as the great sea over which it was roving with an earnest and careful glance, rather as if in search of a strange sail, than in apprehension of the approaching storm. His countenance denoted firmness and resolution, which he truly possessed in an extraordinary degree, and his whole appearance was that of a hardy sailor accustomed to buffet with the storm and laugh at the fiercest wave.