Classic Poem

I.

Sweet is the evening twilight; but, alas!
There's sadness in it: day's light tasks are done;
And leisure sighs to think how soon must pass
Those tints that melt o'er heaven, O setting Sun!

And look like heaven dissolved. A tender flush
Of blended rose and purple light o'er all
The luscious landscape spreads, — like pleasure's blush, —
And glows o'er wave, sky, flower, and palm-tree tall.

II.

Tis now that solitude has most of pain:
Vague apprehensions of approaching night
Whisper the soul attuned to bliss, and fain
To find in love equivalent for light.

III.

The bard has sung, God never formed a soul
Without its own peculiar mate, to meet
Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole
Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete.

IV.

But thousand evil things there are that hate
To 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 despairing
Of what it would, descends, and sips the nearest draught.

V.

'Tis twilight in fair Egla's grove: her eye
Is sad and wistful; while the hues that glint
In soft profusion o'er the molten sky
O'er all her beauty spread a mellower tint.

VI.

And, formed in every fibre for such love
As Heaven not yet had given her to share,
Through the deep shadowy vistas of her grove
Sent looks of wistfulness. No Spirit there

Appears as wont: for many a month so long
He had not left her: what could so detain?
She took her lute, and tuned it for a song,
The while spontaneous words accord them to a strain.

Taught by enamoured Zophiil: softly heaving
The while her heart, thus from its inmost core
Such feelings gushed, to Lydian numbers weaving,
As never had her lip expressed before: —

VII.

Song.

Day in melting purple dying,
Blossoms all around me sighing,
Fragrance from the lilies straying,
Zephyr with my ringlets playing,
Ye but waken my distress:
I am sick of loneliness.

Thou to whom I love to hearken,
Come ere night around me darken:
Though thy softness but deceive me,
Say thou'rt true, and I'll believe thee.
Veil, if ill, thy soul's intent:
Let me think it innocent!

Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure:
All I ask is friendship's pleasure:
Let the shining ore lie darkling;
Bring no gem in lustre sparkling;
Gifts and gold are nought to me:
I would only look on thee;

Tell to thee the high-wrought feeling,
Ecstasy but in revealing;
Paint to thee the deep sensation,
Rapture in participation,
Yet but torture, if comprest
In a lone unfriended breast.

Absent still? Ah, come and bless me!
Let these eyes again caress thee.
Once, in caution, I could fly thee:
Now I nothing could deny thee.
In a look if death there be,
Come, and I will gaze on thee!

VIII.

An unknown spirit, who for many a year
Had marked in Helon passing excellence,
And loved to watch o'er Egla too, came near
This eve; but other cares had long time kept him hence.

IX.

A lute-chord sounds: hark! for a tender hymn
To bear to heaven he pauses in his flight:
Alas! it is not heaven that lends her theme!
Nay, if he leave her, she is lost to-night.

X.

He starts; he looks through the light, trembling shade,
And fears, e'en now, his coming is too late:
What varied perils have beset the maid!
She verges to the crisis of her fate.

XI.

He gazes on her guileless face, and grieves:
There's treachery even in her own lute's sound;
And things his heavenly sense alone perceives,
Unseen amidst the flowers lurk close around.

XII.

And Zophiil too, late from the deep returned
In such a state 'twas piteous but to see,
Watched near the maid — whose love he fain had earned
By fiercer torments still — invisibly.

XIII.

His wings were folded o'er his eyes: severe
As 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 mind

Was torture worse: a dark presentiment
Came o'er his soul with paralyzing chill,
As when Fate vaguely whispers her intent
To poison mortal joy with sense of pending ill.

XIV.

He searched about the grove with all the care
Of trembling jealousy, as if to trace
By track or wounded flower some rival there;
And scarcely dared to look upon the face

Of her he loved, lest it some tale might tell
To make the only hope that soothed him vain.
He hears her notes in numbers die and swell,
But almost fears to listen to the strain

Himself had taught her, lest some hated name
Had been with that dear gentle air inwreathed
While he was far. She sighed: he nearer came:
Oh transport! Zophiil was the name she breathed!

XV.

He saw but her, and thought her all alone:
His name was on her lip in hour like this!
And, doting, — drinking every look and tone, —
Paused, ere he would advance, for very bliss.

XVI.

The joy of a whole mortal life he felt
In that one moment. Now, too long unseen,
He fain had shown his beauteous form, and knelt;
But, while he still delayed, a mortal rushed between.

XVII.

Tall was her form; her quivering lip was pale;
Long streamed her hair; and glared her wild dark eye;
And, grasping Egla's arm, — " No arts avail
Thee now! Vile murderess of my Meles, die! "

She said: her dagger at soft Egla's breast
Touched the white folded robe; but, failing breath
And strength, at once that frenzied arm arrest;
And, sinking to the earth, Zameia groaned in death.

XVIII.

This Orpha saw, — a slave, a sullen maid,
But beautiful; whose glance Rosanes caught
While yet the captives at the palace staid,
And secretly caressed until he taught

The haughty girl, impatient of her fate,
A hope that gave her, in her lowliness,
The wild ambition of a higher state.
But who can paint the depth of her distress,

When he had gone to seek the dangerous bride,
And when the following morn his death revealed?
Hate, envy, love, sorrow, hopes crushed, — all vied
To nurture the revenge her withering heart concealed.

XIX.

'Twas she who told Zameia of the doom
Of her loved Mede, and led her to the breast
She burned to pierce. Now from her heart of gloom
Burst the deep smouldering rage thus bitterly expressed: —

XX.

" Another murder! Sorceress, to me
Tell not a Spirit did it: I know well
What wanton thing thou art: was't not by thee
Rosanes, Meles, young Altheitor fell,

" Lured by thine arts to glut a love as dread
As that fell queen's, who every morning spilt
The separate life that warmed her nightly bed,
Closing, with death's cold seal, lips that might tell her guilt? "

XXI.

Then came Neantes, knelt, and bathed with tears
The lost Zameia's form: 'twas dim and cold;
But the strong cast of beauty still appears,
Though o'er her brow the last chill dews had rolled.

XXII.

And, as he held the taper hand in his
Of his loved mistress (with a piteous look
On Egla cast), his sole reproach was this,
Half checked by rising sobs that burst forth as he spoke: —

XXIII.

" Oh! warm with health and beauty as thou art,
Couldst thou have seen her as I have, — then reft
Of all, — and known the torments of her heart,
Thou hadst not ta'en what little life was left. "

XXIV.

The attempted deed, the scene, the bitter word,
Like knot of serpents, each with separate sting,
Pierced, each and all more keenly than a sword,
Through Egla's heart, that bled while answering: —

" Cease, cease! I killed her not, nor knew such one
There lived on earth. Alas! her purpose rough,
Would to high Heaven, ere she had died, were done! —
O Power that formed me! was it not enough

" To bear perpetual solitude and gloom?
Must I, too, live a theme of foul reproach
To stranger and to slave? The tomb, the tomb,
Is all I ask! Oh! do I ask too much? "

XXV.

She said, and swooned: so Helon, not in vain,
Searched wandering for his guide (he knew not whither),
To lead him to the gates of Ecbatane;
And haply, though unseen, his guide had led him hither.

XXVI.

He saw Zameia on the earth laid low;
And Egla, faint, but fresh in all her charms,
Had sunk beside the corse for weight of woe
But for the timely aid of his receiving arms.

XXVII.

The group, the dead, the form his arms sustain,
The trembling leaves, the twilight's fading gleam,
Confuse: the youth distrusts both eye and brain;
For 'gainst his heart he sees the image of his dream.

XXVIII.

But faithful Hariph soon was at his side,
In search of whom had Helon chanced to roam:
" Ask nothing, youth, but haste with me! " he cried.
" Life has not left the maiden: bear her home. "

XXIX.

They laid her her on her couch, and in her sire
Found him they sought, and in her dwelling staid.
Sephora sat her by the perfumed fire
All night, and watched her child, yet sore afraid

Of her enamoured Spirit, — well she knew
The presence of a mortal vexed his will, —
And mused on Helon's youth; and could but view,
In thought, another scene of death and ill.

XXX.

Egla lay drowned in grief, and could not speak,
But calmed at morn the tumult of her breast,
And kissed her mother thrice; then bade her seek,
And warn, and save from death, the stranger guest.

XXXI.

And through her window when the deepening glows
Of pensive twilight told another day
Was spent, to bathe that fatal form she rose,
Bound cincture o'er her robe, and sent her maids away.

XXXII.

Alone, she thought how Helon had sustained
And saved, for his own doom, her fatal breath;
Zameia, Orpha too: why still remained
Her own scorned life the cause of so much death?

XXXIII.

She could not pray; and to her aching eye
Would come no sweet relief, no wonted tear;
For one of those dark things that lurked was by,
And whispered thoughts of horror in her ear.

XXXIV.

Then on his sad unguarded, victim fixed,
And coldly, to her wounded bosom's core,
Infused him like some fell disease, and mixed
His being with her blood: all hope was o'er,

All fear, all nature, — all was bitterness:
She felt her heart within her like a clod;
And, when at length the sullen deep distress
Found utterance, thus she spoke ungrateful to her God: —

XXXV.

" Was but my infant life for tortures worse
Than flame or sword preserved? On me — on me —
Falls the whole burthen of my nation's curse?
Of all offence I bear the misery!

XXXVI.

" O Power that made! thou'st been profuse of pain,
And I have borne; but now is past the hour:
I ask no mitigation, — that were vain:
Wreak, wreak on me thy whole avenging power!

XXXVII.

" Yet wherefore more the doom I wish delay?
Dissolve me: oh! as earth I was before,
Change this fair-colored form to silent gray,
And let my weary organs feel no more! "

XXXVIII.

She paused: " 'Tis written thus: " Thou shalt not kill."
Yet deeper were the crime to keep a life
Torture to me, to others death and ill:
So in thy presence, God, I end my nature's strife! "

XXXIX.

Then from her waist she took the girdle blue;
Looked on the world without, but breathed no sigh;
Then calmly o'er the window's carving threw
That scarf, and round her neck wound thrice the silken tie.

XL.

Where, in that hour, was Zophiil? All in vain
He burns, with love and jealous rage impelled:
With the dark Being of the storm again
He strives and struggles in the grove, withheld.

From her he loves; had seen her borne away
Before his very eyes; and now, perforce,
Could only look where, newly murdered, lay
The lost Zameia's pale and breathless corse.

XLI.

Whichever Spirit conquers in the strife,
Alas for Egla! Now her hands intwine
The guilty knot; she springs. " Hold, hold! thy life,
Maiden, is not thine own, but God's and mine! "

XLII.

'Twas Helon's voice: but still the legate fiend,
Reluctant to resign her, would not part;
But by his secret, subtle nature screened,
Even from Spirits, through her brain and heart

Darted like pain. The youth with firm embrace
Holds and protects; but, writhing, vexed, and thrown,
She could not even look upon his face,
And answered all he said but with a moan.

XLIII.

Helon bent o'er, and murmured, " Calm those fears:
To be my bride already art thou given!
And I am he, who, in thy childish years,
Was in thy grove announced to thee by Heaven. "

XLIV.

She seemed to listen: soon her moans were hushed;
She caught his words thus suffering and possest;
From her torn heart a grateful torrent gushed,
And love expelled the demon from her breast.

XLV.

Still Helon held, and soothed, and timely drew
Near to the vase of perfumes nightly burning,
And, from his open box of carneol, threw
All it contained. 'Twas well: Zophiil returning,

That moment 'scaped from him whose malice held,
Rushed fiercely anxious to a scene of love
Approved by Heaven. Oh torture! he beheld
A stranger's arm intwine! Eager to prove

That power to mortal rival late so fell,
Enough had been a moment for his ire:
But a strange force he vainly strove to quell,
Insufferable, from the perfume fire,

Rushed forth, resistless as his Maker's breath;
And when he fain would place him by the bed,
Which, but to touch, had been gay Meles' death,
He felt him hurled away, uttered a shriek, and fled.

XLVI.

But Helon lives, supporting still the maid
O'erwhelmed with hopes and fears, and all o'erspent
With recent pain. " Didst hear that shriek? " he said:
" The Sprite has left us: kneel with me! " They knelt

Them both to earth, — the bridegroom and his bride,
So filled with present joy, the past was dim:
'Twas rapture now, whatever might betide;
And pain to her were bliss, so it were shared with him.

XLVII.

Then prayed he: " Heaven, if either have offended,
Punish us now! avenge! but with one breath
Let our so-late-united lives be ended!
Let her be mine, and give me life or death! "

XLVIII.

Then she: " If now I die, I die his wife,
And fully blest, O Heaven, await my doom!
Nor would exchange for thousand years of life
The dearer privilege to share his tomb.

XLIX.

" Yet, if we die not, Maker, to him give
Light from thy source: so shall my sin be less
In thine account; for, oh! I ne'er can live
Other, with him, than his idolatress. "

L.

" Let me adore thy image as I gaze
On her fair eyes now raised with mine to thee;
And let her find, while flow our years and days,
To feed her love, some spark of thee in me, "

LI.

(He said:) " thus, as we kneel, no wild desire
Blends with our voices in unhallowed sighs.
Spirit, to thee we quench the nuptial fire:
Look down propitious on the sacrifice!

LII.

" Receive it as a token that our love
Is of the soul; and, if our lives endure,
Spirit, who sit'st diffusing life above,
Look on our union, and pronounce it pure! "

LIII.

While thus they prayed, Hariph her kindred brought
To listen to them: thus, as, one by one,
Rose their heart-offerings, sense subdued by thought,
" This borne to heaven, " he said, " my task is done.

LIV.

" Call me no longer Hariph: I but took,
For love of that young pair, this mortal guise;
And often have I stood beside Heaven's book,
And given in record there their deeds and sighs.

LV.

" From infancy I've watched them, far apart,
Oppressed by men and fiends, yet formed to dwell
Soul blent with soul, and beating heart 'gainst heart:
'Tis done. Behold the angel Raphail!

LVI.

" That blest commission, friend of men, I bear,
To comfort those who undeservedly mourn;
And every good resolve, kind tear, heart-prayer,
'Tis mine to show before the Eternal's throne.

LVII.

" And oft I haste, and, when the good and true
Are headlong urged to deep pollution, save,
Just as my wings receive some drops of dew,
Which else must join Asphaltites' black wave, "

LVIII.

He said, all o'er to radiant beauty warming:
While they, in doubt of what they looked upon,
Beheld a form dissolving, dazzling, charming;
But, ere their lips found utterance, it was gone.

LIX.

Afar that pitying angel bent his flight,
In anxious search, revolving in his breast
Of a once heavenly brother's wretched plight:
Torn from his last dear hope, where could he rest?

LX.

Hurled 'gainst his will, the suffering Zophiil went
To the remotest of Egyptia's bounds:
Demons pursued to view his punishment,
And with his shrieks the desert blast resounds.

LXI.

Dark shadowy fiends, invidious that he joyed
In love and beauty still, less deeply curst
Than they, of late had leagued them, and employed
All arts to crush and foil. Now, as when first.

Expelled from heaven they saw him writhe, and while
He groans, and clasps the earth, sit them beside,
Ask questions of his bliss, and then with smile
Recount his baffled schemes, and linger to deride.

LXII.

And, when they fled, he hid him in a cave,
Strewn with the bones of some sad wretch, who there,
Apart from men, had sought a desert grave,
And yielded to the demon of despair.

LXIII.

There beauteous Zophiil, shrinking from the ray,
Envying the wretch that so his life had ended,
Wailed his eternity. He fain would pray,
But could not pray to one he had offended.

LXIV.

The fiercest pains of death had been relief,
And yet his quenchless being might not end.
Hark! Raphail's voice breaks sweetly on his grief: —
" Hope, Zophiil! hope, hope, hope! thou hast a friend! "