Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848

From 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 thought
To deem what radiance once they towered above;
But all its proudly beauteous outline taught
That 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 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.
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 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!
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.

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 - Maria del Occidente – otherwise, we believe, Mrs. Brooks – is styled in "The Doctor," &c. "the most impassioned and most imaginative of all poetesses." And without taking into account quædam ardentiora scattered here and there throughout her singular poem, there is undoubtedly ground for the first clause, and, with the more accurate substitution of "fanciful" for "imaginative" for the whole of the eulogy. It is altogether an extraordinary performance. —London Quarterly Review.]

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 - The author of "Notes on Cuba." Boston, 1844.] 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 1812-15

BY 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.

It was evident that a bad night was before them, and there were some on board the little privateer who thought they had better have remained inside the light-house of Cape May, than ventured out upon the sea. The heavy masses of black clouds which were piled on the edge of the distant horizon seemed gradually gathering nearer and nearer, as if to surround and ingulf the gallant vessel, which sped onward fearlessly and proudly, as if conscious of its power to survive the tempest, and bide the storm.

Captain Greene's eye was at length attracted by the threatening aspect of the sky, and seizing his speaking-trumpet he gave the orders of preparation, which were the more promptly executed inasmuch as they had been anxiously awaited.

"Lay aloft there, lads, and in with the fore to'gallant-sail and royal – down with the main gaff top-sail! – bear a hand, lads, a norther on the Banks is no plaything! Clear away both cables, and see them bent to the anchors – let's have all snug – lower the flag from the gaff-peak, and send up the storm-pennant, there – now we are ready."

A thunder-storm at sea is perhaps the sublimest sight in nature, especially when attended with the darkness and mystery of night. The struggling vessel plunges onward into the deep blackness, like a blind and unbridled war-horse. All is dark – fearfully dark. Stand with me, dear reader, here in the bow of the ship! make fast to that halliard, and share with me in the glorious feelings engendered by the storm which is now rioting over the waters and rending the sky. We hear the fierce roar of the contending surges, yet we see them not. We hear the quivering sails and strained sheets, creaking and fluttering like imprisoned spirits, above and around us, but all is solemnly invisible; now, see in the distant horizon the faint premonitory flush of light, preceding the vivid lightning flash – now, for a moment, every thing – sky – water – sheet – shroud and spar are glowing with a brilliancy that exceedeth the brightness of day – the sky is a broad canopy of golden radiance, and the waves are crested with a red and fiery surge, that reminds you of your conception of the "lake of burning fire and brimstone." We feel the dread – the vast sublimity of the breathless moment, and while the mighty thoughts and tumultuous conceptions are striving for form and order of utterance within our throbbing breasts – again all is dark – sadly, solemnly dark. Is not the scene – is not the hour, truly sublime?

There was one at least on board the little Raker, who felt as we should have felt, dear reader – a sense of exultation, mingled with awe. It is upon the ocean that man learns his own weakness, and his own strength – he feels the light vessel trembling beneath him, as if it feared dissolution – he hears the strained sheets moaning in almost conscious agony – he sees the great waves dashing from stem to stern in relentless glee, and he feels that he is a sport and a plaything in the grasp of a mightier power; he learns his own insignificance. Yet the firm deck remains – the taut sheets and twisted halliards give not away; and he learns a proud reliance on his own skill and might, when he finds that with but a narrow hold between him and death, he can outride the storm, and o'ermaster the wave.

Such were the thoughts which filled the mind of Henry Morris, as he stood by the side of Captain Greene on the quarter-deck of the Raker; as he stood with his left arm resting on the main-boom, and his gracefully turned little tarpaulin thrown back from a broad, high forehead, surrounded by dark and clustering curls, and with his black, brilliant eyes lighted up with the enthusiasm of thought, he presented a splendid specimen of an American sailor. The epaulette upon his shoulder denoted that he was an officer; he was indeed second in command in the privateer. He was a native of New Jersey, and his father had been in Revolutionary days one of the "Jarsey Blues," as brave and gallant men as fought in that glorious struggle.

"Well, Harry," said Captain Greene, "it's a dirty night, but I'll turn in a spell, and leave you in command."

"Ay, ay, sir."

Captain Greene threw out a huge quid of tobacco which had rested for some time in his mouth, walked the deck a few times fore and aft, gaped as if his jaws were about to separate forever, and then disappeared through the cabin-door.