Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 — John Shaqi
Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848Various
General
Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
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 Zophiel 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.
Zophiel, 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 Zophiel, 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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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