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But the shrill warning reach'd him through the din
Of waves: back, back, he struggles, ere too late,
And the whole horror of the avoided fate
Shot through his soul. The wages of his sin
He felt, for once, were light, and clasp'd his
shrieking mate,

Who thus entreats, "Up! to earth's pleasant fields!
O, ZOPHIEL, all this torture's for thy pleasure!"
Twined in his arms, the baffled seraph yields,

And flies the hungry depth that gorged his dear

est treasure.

What added torment-gain'd; then snatch'd

away

Press'd to his heart-and then, to feel it riven From heart and hand, while bearing it to day With joy complete as if recall'd to heaven! That which, to own was perfect transport, lost; Yet still, (to urge a dangerous course contending And the fierce passions which his bosom crost

For pity, or some other hope, suspending ;) Resisting all, he forced a desperate way;

His gentle phere with plaints no longer vain, Clung closer to his neck; nor ceased to pray To be restored to sun and flowers again. Thus all entwined they rose again to air,

Near Lybia's coast. Black clouds,in mass deform, Were frowning; yet a moment's calm was there, As it had stopp'd to breathe a while the storm. Their white feet press'd the desert sod; they shook From their bright locks the briny drops; nor stay'd ZOPHIEL on ills, present or past, to look;

For, weary as he was, his lonely maid Came to his ardent soul in all her charms; Unguarded she, what being might molest

Even now! his chill'd and wounded substance

warms

But at the thought; the while he thus addrest The shivering sprite of flowers: "We must not stay; All is but desolation here, and gloom: Up! let us through the air, nor more delay; Nay, droop not now; a little more essay,

I'll bear thee forward to thy bower of bloom, And on thy roses lay thee down to rest.

Come through the desert! banquet on thy store Of dews and sweets. Come, warm thee at my breast! On! through the air, nor think of danger more, As grateful for the service thou hast done

I live, though lost the object of our task, As if were still possess'd the treasure won;

And all thou wouldst of ZOPHIEL, freely ask. The gnome, the secret path, the draught divine I know: TAHATHYAM sighs, beneath the wave, For mortal bride; valour and skill are mine;

He may again bestow what once he gave."

Thus, ZOPHIEL, renovated, though the air

Was thick and dull, with just enough of hope To save him from the stupor of despair,

Too much disdain'd the pains he felt, to droop. But soft PHRAERION, smarting from his toil,

To buffet not a tempest was in plight;
And EGLA's lover saw him shrink, recoil,

And beg some nearer shelter for the night;
For now the tempest, bursting in its might,

Raged fiercely round, and made him fain to rest In cave or tomb. But ZOPHIEL gently caught him, Sustain'd him firmly at his fearless breast,

And twixt Euphrates and the Tigris brought him. Then paused a moment o'er a desert drear,

Until the thunder-clouds around him burst; His flights renew'd, and wish'd for Media near; But stronger grows the gale: what sprites accurst Ride on the tempest? Warring elements

Might not alone such ardent course impede; The wretched spirit from his speed relents

With sense like mortal bosom, when they bleed. Loud and more loud the blast; in mingled gyre, Flew leaves and stones; and with a deafening

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"Rest,ZOPHIEL, rest!" PHRAERION cries: "the surge Was lesser pain; I cannot bear it more! Beaten in seas so long we but emerge

To meet a fiercer conflict on the shore!" Then ZOPHIEL: "There's a little grot on high, The wild doves nestle there: it is secure; To Ectabane, but for an hour, I'll fly,

And come for thee at morn: no more endure. Nay-wilt not leave me? then I'll bear thee through As lately through the whirling floods I bore." Still closer clinging, to his bosom grew

The tender sprite; "then bear-I can no more." He said, and came a shock, as if the earth Crash'd 'gainst some other planet; shivered brands [birth!) Whirl round their heads; and (shame upon their Both sprites lay mazed and prostrate on the sands.

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But ZOPHIEL, stung with shame, and in a mood
Too fierce for fear, uprose; yet ere for flight
Served his torn wings a form before him stood
In gloomy majesty. Like starless night
A sable mantle fell in cloudy fold

From its stupendous breast; and as it trod
The pale and lurid light, at distance rolled

Before its princely feet receding on the sod. 'Twas still as death; save that the thunder spoke In mutterings low and far; a look severe Seemed as preluding speech; but ZOPHIEL broke The silence first: "Why, spirit, art thou here?" It waved its hand, and instantaneous came A hissing bolt with new impetus back; Darts round a group of verdant palms the flame; That being pointed to them, blasted black. "O! source of all my guilt! at such an hour," (The mortal-lover said,) "thine answer there

I need not read: too well I know thy power
In all I've felt and feel. But has despair,
Or grief, or torment, e'er made ZOPHIEL bow?
Declare me that, nor spend thine arts in vain
To torture more: if, like a miscreant, now

I bend to thee, 't is not for dread of pain;
That I can bear: yet, bid thy legions cease

Their strife. O! spare me this resistance rude But for an hour! let me but on in peace;

So shall I taste the joy of gratitude, Even to thee."-"The joy?" then first with scorn Replied that sombre being: "dream'st thou still Of joy a thing accursed, demean'd, forlorn,

As thou art? Is't for joy thou mock'st my will? Canst thou taste pleasure? banish'd, crush'd, debased."

"I can, betrayer! dost thou envy me? But leave me to my wrongs, and I can taste

Ev'n yet of heaven, spite of my fall and thee. But that affects not thee: thine insults spare

But for an hour; leave me to go at will Only till morn, and I will back and bear

Whate'er thou wilt. What dost obstruct me still? Thine armies dim, and shrouded in the storm

Then I must meet; and weary thus, and torn, Essay the force of an immortal arm.

Lone as I am, until another morn Shall shame both them and thee to thine abode. There, on the steam of human heart-blood spilt By priest or murderer, make repast; or brood

Over the vile creations of thy guilt, Waste thy life-giving power on reptiles foul; Slow, slimy worms, and poisonous snakes; then watch,

Like the poor brutes that, here, for hunger prowl, To mar the beauty that thou canst not match?" Thus he the other folded o'er its breast

Its arms, and stood as cold and firm the while, As if no passion stirr❜d; save that express'd Its pale, pale lip, a faint, ferocious smile.

While, blent with winds, ten thousand agents wage
Anew the strife, and ZOPHIEL, fain to fly,
But foil'd, gave up to unavailing rage,

And strove, and toil'd, and strove, but could not mount on high.

Then thus the torturer: "Hie thee to the bed Of her thou lov'st; pursue thy dear design; Go dew the golden ringlets of her head!

Thou wait'st not, sure, for any power of mine. Yet better were the duties, spirit dull,

Of thine allegiance! Win her o'er to me, Take all thou canst,-a pleasure brief but full,

Vain dreamer, if not mine, she's lost to thee." "Wilt thou then hurt her? Why am I detain'd? O, strength! once serving 'gainst the powers above, [strain'd Where art thou now?" Thus ZOPHIEL; and he His wounded wings to mount,but could not move. Then thus the scorner: "Nay, be calm! I'll still The storm for thee: hear! it recedes-'t is ended. Yet, if thou dream'st success awaits thee, ill

Dost thou conceive of boundless power offended. ZOPHIEL, bland sprite, sublime intelligence,

Once chosen for my friend and worthy me;

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Not so wouldst thou have labour'd to be hence,
Had my emprise been crowned with victory.
When I was bright in heaven, thy seraph eyes
Sought only mine. But he who every power
Beside, while hope allured him, could depise,
Changed and forsook me, in misfortune's hour."
Changed and forsook thee? this from thee to me?
Once noble spirit! O! had not too much
My o'erfond heart adored thy fallacy, [proach;"
I had not, now, been here to bear thy keen re-
ZOPHIEL replied: "Fallen, wretched, and debased,
E'en to thy scornful word's extent, my doom
Too well I know, and for what cause displaced;
But not from thee should the remembrance come.
Forsook thee in misfortune? at thy side

I closer fought as peril thicken'd round, Watched o'er thee fallen: the light of heaven denied, But proved my love more fervent and profound. Prone as thou wert, had I been mortal-borne, And own'd as many lives as leaves there be, From all Hyrcania by his tempest torn

I had lost them, one by one, and given the last for thee.

Pain had a joy, for suffering could but wring
Love from my soul, to gild the murky air
Of our first rude retreat; while I, fond thing!
Still thought thee true and smiled upon despair.
O! had thy plighted pact of faith been kept,

Still unaccomplish'd were the curse of sin;
Mid all the woes thy ruin'd followers wept,
Had friendship lingered, hell could not have been.
But when, to make me thy first minister

Came the proposal; when the purpose burst Forth from thy heart's black den disclosed and bare,

Then first I felt alone, and knew myself accurs'd. Though the first seraph form'd, how could I tell

The ways of guile? What marvel I believed, When cold ambition mimick'd love so well,

That half the sons of heaven looked on deceived? Ambition thine; to me the Eternal gave

So much of love his kind design was cross'd: Held to thy heart I thought thee good as brave, Nor realized my guilt till all was lost. Now, writhing at my utmost need, how vain Are ZOPHIEL's tears and prayers! Alas! hea

ven-born,

Of all heaven's virtues, doth not one remain?
Pity me once, and let me now begone!"
"Go!" said the cold detainer, with a smile

That heighten'd cruelty: "yet know, from me, Thy foolish hopes but lure thee on awhile

To wake thy sense to keener misery." "O! skill'd to torment! spare me! spare me now!" Chill'd by a dread foreboding, ZOPHIEL said: "But little time doth waning night allow."

He knelt; he wept; calm grew the winds; he fled.

The clouds disperse; his heavenly voice he sent

In whispers through the caves; PHRAERION there, In covert loathed, to that low music lent

His soft, quick ear, and sprang to join his phere. Soon through the desert, on their airy way,

Mantled in dewy mists the spirits press'd, And reached fair Media ere the twilight gray Recall'd the rose's lover to his nest.

But on the Tigris' winding banks, though night Still lingers round, two early mortals greet

The first faint gleam with prayer; and bathed and dight

As travellers came forth. The morn rose sweet. And rushing by them as the spirits past,

In tinted vapours while the pale star sets; The younger asked, "Whence are these odours cast, The breeze has waked from beds of violets!"

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!

THE MOON OF FLOWERS.

O, MOON of flowers! sweet moon of flowers!†
Why dost thou mind me of the hours
Which flew so softly on that night,
When last I saw and felt thy light?

O, moon of flowers! thou moon of flowers!
Would thou couldst give me back those hours,
Since which a dull, cold year has fled,
Or show me those with whom they sped!
O, moon of flowers! O, moon of flowers!
In scenes afar were past those hours,
Which still with fond regret I see,
And wish my heart could change like thee!

From "Zophiel."

The savages of the northern part of America sometimes count by moons. May is called by them the moon of flowers, and October the moon of falling leaves.

MORNING.

How beauteous art thou, O thou morning sun!-
The old man, feebly tottering forth, admires
As much thy beauty, now life's dream is done,
As when he moved exulting in his fires.
The infant strains his little arms to catch

The rays that glance about his silken hair; And Luxury hangs her amber lamps, to match Thy face, when turn'd away from bower and palace fair.

Sweet to the lip the draught, the blushing fruit;
Music and perfumes mingle with the soul;
How thrills the kiss, when feeling's voice is mute!
And light and beauty's tints enhance the whole.
Yet each keen sense were dulness but for thee:
Thy ray to joy, love, virtue, genius warms;
Thou never weariest; no inconstancy

But comes to pay new homage to thy charms. How many lips have sung thy praise, how long!

Yet, when his slumbering harp he feels thee woo, The pleasured bard pours forth another song,

And finds in thee, like love, a theme forever new.
Thy dark-eyed daughters come in beauty forth,
In thy near realms; and, like their snow-wreaths
fair,

The bright-hair'd youths and maidens of the north
Smile in thy colours when thou art not there.
"T is there thou bidst a deeper ardour glow,
And higher, purer reveries completest;
As drops that farthest from the ocean flow,

Refining all the way, from springs the sweetest. Haply, sometimes, spent with the sleepless night, Some wretch, impassion'd, from sweet morning's

breath,

Turns his hot brow, and sickens at thy light; But Nature, ever kind, soon heals or gives him death.

MARRIAGE.

THE bard has sung, God never form'd 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 com-
plete!

But thousand evil things there are that hate

To look on happiness; these hurt, impede, [fate, And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and 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, unquaff'd, Suffers, recoils, then, thirsty and despairing

Of what it would, descends and sips the nearest draught.

JAMES G. PERCIVAL.

[Born, 1795.]

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL, the most prolific and fanciful of our poets, was born in Berlin, Connecticut, on the fifteenth of September, 1795. His father, an intelligent physician, superintended his early education, and saw in his correct taste, and manly character, and the remarkable facility with which he acquired knowledge, the promise of a brilliant life. He died in 1807, and the young stu. dent was intrusted to other guardians; but his mental culture was carefully attended to, and he entered Yale College in 1811, far advanced in classical and general learning.

In his early devotion to study originated the love of seclusion which forms one of the distinguishing features in his character. From his youth he has been more fond of his own fancies than of society, and has therefore enjoyed few of the opportunities of observation which are found by mingling with the world. To his early habits of day-dreaming he has himself alluded in a poem on the Pleasures of Childhood:

"Along the stream,
That flowed in summer's mildness o'er its bed
Of rounded pebbles, with its scanty waves
Encircling many an islet, and its banks
In bays and havens scooping, I would stray,
And, dreaming, rear an empire on its shores.
There cities rose, and palaces and towers
Caught the first light of morning; there the fleet
Lent all its snowy canvass to the wind,
And bore, with awful front, against the foe;
There armies marshall'd their array, and join'd
In mimic slaughter: there the conquer'd fled-
I follow'd their retreat, until, secure,
They found a refuge in their country's walls;
The triumphs of the conqueror were mine,-
The bounds of empire widen'd, and the wealth
Torn from the helpless hands of humbled foes;
There many a childish hour was spent; the world,
That moved and fretted round me, had no power
To draw me from my musings, but the dream
Enthrall'd me till it seem'd reality;
And, when I woke, I wonder'd that a brook
Was babbling by, and a few rods of soil,
Cover'd with scanty herbs, the arena where
Cities and empires, fleets and armies rose."

He began to write at a very early age; but I believe he published very little before he went to reside at New Haven, when he became a frequent contributor to the periodicals. He devoted his leisure hours, for several weeks before he was graduated, to the composition of "Zamor," a tragedy, which was performed by the students at the annual commencement in the summer of 1815, and afterward printed. I have not read this, but a competent critic speaks of it as a poor imitation of Doctor YOUNG'S "Revenge," and far below any of our author's other productions. The first volume of his poems was published at New Haven, in 1820; and in the following year, at Charleston, where he had gone on account of his health, which had been

impaired by too constant study, appeared the first number of "Clio." On his return to Connecticut he published the second number of "Clio," and his longest work, "Prometheus," a poem of more than three thousand lines, in the stanza of SPENSER. An edition of his select writings was published, in a large octavo volume, in New York, in 1823, and soon after reprinted in London. He had now reached the highest point in his reputation as a poet.

After passing the customary period in preparatory study, PERCIVAL received the degree of Doctor of Medicine, in 1823; but his devotion to literature and the sciences prevented his engaging in the practice of his profession. In 1824, he was appointed a professor in the United States Military Academy at West Point. Ill health compelled him to relinquish this office, and he removed to Boston, where he was for a considerable time connected with the army, as a surgeon. In this period he contributed several poems to the United States Literary Gazette, a magazine published at Cambridge, in which appeared some of the earliest effusions of BRYANT, LONGFELLOW and DAWES.

In 1825, he delivered a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, and in 1827, the third number of "Clio" was published in New York. The Greek revolution was still in progress, and the poet shared in the general enthusiasm which pervaded this country in behalf of the oppressed descendants of the fathers of civilization. Several of the poems embraced in that collection are appeals to the Christian nations to give to the Greeks their ancient liberty.

There are in America few more learned men than PERCIVAL. He is familiar with the natural sciences, and the literature of Greece, Rome, and the oriental nations, and writes with fluency in all the modern languages of Europe.

Since the publication of his last volume of poetry, he has furnished valuable aid to the wellknown philologist, Doctor WEBSTER, in the preparation of his American Dictionary of the English Language; translated MALTE-BRUN's Geography, and some other works; and edited several important publications for the booksellers. He has also been a frequent writer for the magazines. His latest productions are the beautiful Classic Melodies, in the Token for the present year. He resides at New Haven, and his attention is almost exclusively devoted to scientific pursuits.*

He has all the natural qualities of a great poet, but he lacks the artistic skill, or declines the labour, without which few authors gain immortality. He has a brilliant imagination, remarkable

*He was recently appointed by the Governor of Connecticut to make a geological survey of that state.

command of language, and an exhaustless fountain of ideas. He writes with a facility but rarely equalled, and when his thoughts are once committed to the page, he shrinks from the labour of revising, correcting, and condensing. He remarks in one of his prefaces, that his verse is "very far from bearing the marks of the file and the burnisher," and that he likes to see "poetry in the full ebullition of feeling and fancy, foaming up with the spirit of life, and glowing with the rainbows of a glad inspiration." If by this he means that a poet should reject the slow and laborious process by which a polished excellence is attained, he errs. Nothing truly great was ever accomplished without long and patient toil.

He possesses in an eminent degree the creative faculty, and his genius is versatile. He has been

an admirer and a student of nature, and he describes the visible world, in its minutest details, with feeling and accuracy. The moral tendency of his writings is generally correct; but in one or two poems there is a strain of misanthropy, and in some of his earliest ones there were intimations of skepticism. His later works are free from such blemish, and I believe he no longer entertains the doubts he once cherished in regard to religion.

PERCIVAL has few associates. He lives apart from society, among his books, or in the fields. One who has been admitted to his friendship remarks, that with the simplicity he unites the purity of childhood. He resides at New Haven, and is still as diligent a student as when he was an under-graduate in the college of that beautiful city.

LIBERTY TO ATHENS.

THE flag of Freedom floats once more
Around the lofty Parthenon;

It waves, as waved the palm of yore,
In days departed long and gone;
As bright a glory, from the skies,

Pours down its light around those towers, And once again the Greeks arise,

As in their country's noblest hours; Their swords are girt in Virtue's cause, MINERVA's sacred hill is freeO! may she keep her equal laws, While man shall live, and time shall be.

The pride of all her shrines went down; The Goth, the Frank, the Turk, had reft The laurel from her civic crown;

Her helm by many a sword was cleft: She lay among her ruins low

Where grew the palm, the cypress rose, And, crushed and bruised by many a blow, She cower'd beneath her savage foes; But now again she springs from earth, Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks; She rises in a brighter birth,

And sounds redemption to the Greeks.

It is the classic jubilee

Their servile years have rolled away; The clouds that hover'd o'er them flee, They hail the dawn of Freedom's day; From heaven the golden light descends, The times of old are on the wing, And Glory there her pinion bends,

And Beauty wakes a fairer spring; The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves, Are all in triumph's pomp array'd; A light that points their tyrant's graves, Plays round each bold Athenian's blade.

The Parthenon, the sacred shrine, Where Wisdom held her pure abode :

The hill of Mars, where light divine

Proclaimed the true but unknown God; Where Justice held unyielding sway, And trampled all corruption down, And onward took her lofty way

To reach at truth's unfading crown:
The rock, where liberty was full,

Where eloquence her torrents roll'd,
And loud, against the despot's rule,
A knell the patriot's fury toll'd:
The stage, whereon the drama spake,

In tones that seem'd the words of Heaven, Which made the wretch in terror shake,

As by avenging furies driven :

The groves and gardens, where the fire
Of wisdom, as a fountain, burned,
And every eye, that dared aspire

To truth, has long in worship turned:
The halls and porticoes, where, trod
The moral sage, severe, unstain'd,
And where the intellectual god

In all the light of science reign'd:
The schools, where rose in symmetry

The simple, but majestic pile, Where marble threw its roughness by,

To glow, to frown, to weep, to smile, Where colours made the canvass live,

Where music roll'd her flood along, And all the charms that art can give,

Were blent with beauty, love, and song: The port, from whose capacious womb Her navies took their conquering road, The heralds of an awful doom

To all who would not kiss her rod: On these a dawn of glory springs, These trophies of her brightest fame; Away the long-chain'd city flings

Her weeds, her shackles, and her shame; Again her ancient souls awake,

HARMODIUS bares anew his sword; Her sons in wrath their fetters break, And Freedom is their only lord.

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