Zophiel | Page 4

few who chance to hear thy trembling breath,?My lyre, for her who wakes thee, have a sigh. [FN#6]
[FN#6] It may not be improper to observe that these stanzas were composed during a period of misfortune and dejection.
Forsake me not! none ever loved thee more!?Fair queen, I'll meet woe's fearfulest frown--and smile;
If mid the scene severe?Thou'lt drop on me one tear,?And let thy flitting form sometimes beguile?The present of its ills--I'll scorn them and adore.
Then warm the form relentless fate would chill--?Dark lours my night--Oh! give me one embrace!
If every pain I bear?Befit me for thy care,?Come sorrow--scorn--desertion--I can chase?Despair, fell watching for her victim still.
ZOPHIEL.
CANTO I.
I.
The time has been--this holiest records say--?In punishment for crimes of mortal birth,?When spirits banished from the realms of day?Wandered malignant o'er the nighted earth.(1)
And from the cold and marble lips declared,?Of some blind-worshipped--earth-created god,?Their deep deceits; which trusting monarchs snared?Filling the air with moans, with gore the sod. [FN#7]
Yet angels doffed their robes in radiance dyed,?And for a while the joys of heaven delayed,?To watch benign by some just mortal's side--?Or meet th' aspiring love of some high gifted maid. [FN#8]
Blest were those days!--can these dull ages boast?Aught to compare? tho' now no more beguile--?Chain'd in their darkling depths th' infernal host--?Who would not brave a fiend to share an angel's smile?
[FN#7] The god who conducted the Hebrews sent a malignant spirit to speak from the mouth of the prophets, in order to deceive king Achab.
[FN#8] It is useless to note this stanza, as two well-known poems have lately been founded on the same passage of the Pentateuch to which it alludes.
II.
'Twas then there lived a captive Hebrew pair;?In woe th' embraces of their youth had past,?And blest their paler years one daughter--fair?She flourished, like a lonely rose, the last
And loveliest of her line. The tear of joy--?The early love of song--the sigh that broke?From her young lip--the best-beloved employ--?What womanhood disclosed in infancy bespoke.
A child of passion--tenderest and best?Of all that heart has inly loved and felt;?Adorned the fair enclosure of her breast--?Where passion is not found, no virtue ever dwelt.
Yet not, perverted, would my words imply?The impulse given by Heaven's great Artizan?Alike to man and worm--mere spring, whereby?The distant wheels of life, while time endures, roll on--
But the collective ministry that fill?About the soul, their all-important place--?That feed her fires--empower her fainting will--?And write the god on feeble mortals face.
III.
Yet anger, or revenge, envy or hate?The damsel knew not: when her bosom burned?And injury darkened the decrees of fate,?She had more pitious wept to see that pain returned.
Or if, perchance, tho' formed most just and pure,?Amid their virtue's wild luxuriance hid,?Such germ all mortal bosoms must immure?Which sometimes show their poisonous heads unbid--
If haply such the lovely Hebrew finds,?Self knowledge wept th' abasing truth to know,?And _innate pride,_ that _queen of noble minds,_?Crushed them indignant ere a bud could grow.
IV.
And such--ev'n now, in earliest youth are seen--?But would they live, with armour more deform,?Their love--o'erflowing breasts must learn to screen:?"The bird that sweetest sings can least endure the storm."
V.
And yet, despite of all the gushing tear--?The melting tone--the darting heart-stream--proved,?The soul that in them spoke, could spurn at fear?Of death or danger; and had those she loved
Required it at their need, she could have stood,?Unmoved, as some fair-sculptured statue, while?The dome that guards it, earth's convulsions, rude?Are shivering--meeting ruin with a smile.
VI.
And this, at intervals in language bright?Told her blue eyes; tho' oft the tender lid?Like lilly drooping languidly; and white?And trembling--all save love and lustre hid.
Then, as young christian bard had sung, they seemed?Like some Madonna in his soul--so sainted;?But opening in their energy--they beamed?As tasteful pagans their Minerva painted;
While o'er her graceful shoulders' milky swell,?Like those full oft on little children seen?Almost to earth her silken ringlets fell?Nor owned Pactolus' sands more golden sheen.
VII.
And now, full near, the hour unwished for drew?When fond, Sephora hoped to see her wed;?And, for 'twould else expire, impatient grew?To renovate her race from beauteous Egla's bed.
VIII.
None of their kindred lived to claim her hand?But stranger-youths had asked her of her sire?With gifts and promise fair; he could withstand?All save her tears; and harkening her desire
Still left her free; but soon her mother drew?From her a vow, that when the twentieth year?Its full, fair finish o'er her beauty threw,?If what her fancy fed on, came not near,
She would entreat no more but to the voice?Of her light-giver hearken; and her life?And love--all yielding to that kindly choice?Would hush each idle wish and learn to be a wife.
IX.
Now oft it happ'd when morning task was done?And for the virgins of her household made?And lotted each her toil; while yet the sun?Was young, fair Egla to a woody shade,
Loved to retreat; there, in the fainting hour?Of sultry noon the burning sunbeam fell?Like a warm twilight; so bereft