Zophiel | Page 2

last are easily concealed and the first carefully dragged to light.
The miseries too, sometimes attendant to persons of distinguished literary attainments, are often held forth as a subject of "warn and scare" but Cervantes and Camoens would both have been cast into prison even though unable to read or write, and Savage, though a mechanic or scrivener, would probably have possessed the same failings and consequently have fallen into the same, or a greater degree of poverty and suffering. Alas! how many, in the flower of youth and strength, perish in the loathsome dungeons of this island, and, when dead, are refused a decent grave; who, in many instances, were their histories traced by an able pen would be wept by half the civilized world.
Although I can boast nothing but an extreme and unquenchable love for the art to which my humble aspirations are confined, my lyre has been a solace when every thing else has failed; soothing when agitated, and when at peace furnishing that exercise and excitement without which the mind becomes sick, and all her faculties retrograde when they ought to be advancing. Men, when they feel that nature has kindled in their bosoms a flame which must incessantly be fed, can cultivate eloquence and exert it, in aid of the unfortunate before the judgment seats of their country; or endeavour to "lure to the skies" such as enter the temples of their god; but woman, alike subject to trials and vicissitudes and endowed with the same wishes, (for the observation, "there is no sex to soul," is certainly not untrue,) condemned, perhaps, to a succession of arduous though minute duties in which, oftentimes, there is nothing to charm and little to distract, unless she be allowed the exercise of her pen must fall into melancholy and despair, and perish, (to use the language of Mad. de Stael,) "consumed by her own energies."
Thus do we endeavour to excuse any inordinate or extreme attachment by labouring to show in their highest colours the merits of its object.
Zophiel may or may not be called entirely a creature of imagination, as comports with the faith of the reader; he is not, however, endowed with a single miraculous attribute; for which the general belief of ages, even among christians, may not be produced as authority.
The stanza in which his story is told though less complicate and beautiful than the Spencerian, is equally ancient; and favorable to a pensive melody, is also susceptible of much variety.
The marginal notes will be useless to such as have read much.
_San Patricio, Island of Cuba, March 30, 1825._
INVOCATION.
Thou with the dark blue eye upturned to heaven,?And cheek now pale, now warm with radiant glow,
Daughter of God,--most dear,--?Come with thy quivering tear,?And tresses wild, and robes of loosened flow,--?To thy lone votaress let one look be given!
Come Poesy! nor like some just-formed maid,?With heart as yet unswoln by bliss or woe;--
But of such age be seen?As Egypt's glowing queen,?When her brave Roman learned to love her so?That death and loss of fame, were, by a smile, repaid.
Or as thy Sappho, when too fierce assailed?By stern ingratitude her tender breast:--
Her love by scorn repaid?Her friendship true betrayed,?Sick of the guileful earth, she sank for rest?In the cold waves embrace; while Grecian muse bewailed.
Be to my mortal eye, like some fair dame--?Ripe, but untouched by time; whose frequent blush
Plays o'er her cheek of truth?As soft as earliest youth;?While thoughts exalted to her mild eye rush--?And the expanded soul, tells 'twas from heaven it came.
Daughter of life's first cause; who, when he saw?The ills that unborn innocents must bear,
When doomed to come to earth--?Bethought--and gave thee birth?To charm the poison from affliction there;?And from his source eternal, bade thee draw.
He gave thee power, inferior to his own?But in control o'er matter. 'Mid the crash
Of earthquake, war, and storm,?Is seen thy radiant form?Thou com'st at midnight on the lightning's flash,?And ope'st to those thou lov'st new scenes and worlds unknown.
And still, as wild barbarians fiercely break?The graceful column and the marble dome--
Where arts too long have lain?Debased at pleasure's fain,?And bleeding justice called on wrath to come,?'Mid ruins heaped around, thou bidst thy votarists wake.
Methinks I see thee on the broken shrine?Of some fall'n temple--where the grass waves high
With many a flowret wild;?While some lone, pensive, child?Looks on the sculpture with a wondering eye?Whose kindling fires betray that he is chosen thine. [FN#1]
[FN#1] Genius, perhaps, has often, nay generally, been awakened and the whole future bent of the mind thus strongly operated upon, determined, by some circumstance trivial as this.
Or on some beetling cliff--where the mad waves?Rush echoing thro' the high-arched caves below,
I view some love-reft fair?Whose sighing warms the air,?Gaze anxious on the ocean as it raves?And call on thee-alone, of power to sooth her woe.
Friend of the wretched; smoother