The materials of this poem are universal; that is, such as may be appropriated by every polished nation. In all the most beautiful oriental systems of religion, including our own, may be found such beings as its characters. The early fathers of Christianity not only believed in them, but wrote cumbrous folios upon their nature and attributes. It is a curious fact that they never doubted the existence and the power of the Grecian and Roman gods, but supposed them to be fallen angels, who had caused themselves to be worshiped under particular forms, and for particular characteristics. To what an extent, and to how very late a period this belief has prevailed, may be learned from a remarkable little work of Fontenelle,1 in which that pleasing writer endeavors seriously to disprove that any preternatural power was evinced in the responses of the ancient oracles. The Christian belief in good and evil angels is too beautiful to be laid aside. Their actual and present existence can be disproved neither by analogy, philosophy, or theology, nor can it be questioned without casting a doubt also upon the whole system of our religion. This religion, by many a fanciful skeptic, has been called barren and gloomy; but setting aside all the legends of the Jews, and confining ourselves entirely to the generally received Scriptures, there will be found sufficient food for an imagination warm as that of Homer, Apelles, Phidias, or Praxiteles. It is astonishing that such rich materials for poetry should for so many centuries have been so little regarded, appropriated, or even perceived.
The story of Zophiël, though accompanied by many notes, is simple and easily followed. Reduced to prose, and a child, or a common novel reader, would peruse it with satisfaction. It is in six cantos, and is supposed to occupy the time of nine months: from the blooming of roses at Ecbatana to the coming in of spices at Babylon. Of this time the greater part is supposed to elapse between the second and third canto, where Zophiël thus speaks to Egla of Phraërion:
Yet still she bloomed – uninjured, innocent —
Though now for seven sweet moons by Zophiël watched and wooed.
The king of Medea, introduced in the second canto, is an ideal personage; but the history of that country, near the time of the second captivity, is very confused, and more than one young prince resembling Sardius, might have reigned and died without a record. So much of the main story however as relates to human life is based upon sacred or profane history; and we have sufficient authority for the legend of an angel's passion for one of the fair daughters of our own world. It was a custom in the early ages to style heroes, to raise to the rank of demigods, men who were distinguished for great abilities, qualities or actions. Above such men the angels who are supposed to have visited the earth were but one grade exalted, and they were capable of participating in human pains and pleasures. Zophiël is described as one of those who fell with Lucifer, not from ambition or turbulence, but from friendship and excessive admiration of the chief disturber of the tranquillity of heaven: as he declares, when thwarted by his betrayer, in the fourth canto:
Though the first seraph formed, how could I tell
The ways of guile? What marvels I believed
When cold ambition mimicked love so well
That half the sons of heaven looked on deceived!
During the whole interview in which this stanza occurs, the deceiver of men and angels exhibits his alledged power of inflicting pain. He says to Zophiël, after arresting his course:
"Sublime Intelligence,
Once chosen for my friend and worthy me:
Not so wouldst thou have labored 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 despise,
Changed and forsook me, in misfortune's hour."
To which Zophiël replies:
"Changed, and forsook thee? this from thee to me?
Once noble spirit! Oh! had not too much
My o'er fond heart adored thy fallacy,
I had not, now, been here to bear thy keen reproach;
Forsook thee in misfortune? at thy side
I closer fought as peril thickened 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-born,
And owned as many lives as leaves there be,
From all Hyrcania by his tempest torn
I had lost, one by one, and given the last for thee.
Oh! had thy plighted pact of faith been kept,
Still unaccomplished were the curse of sin;
'Mid all the woes thy ruined followers wept,
Had friendship lingered, hell could not have been."
Phraërion, another fallen angel, but of a nature gentler than that of Zophiël, is thus introduced:
Harmless Phraërion, formed to dwell on high,
Retained the looks that had been his above;
And his harmonious lip, and sweet, blue eye,
Soothed the fallen seraph's heart, and changed his scorn to love;
No soul-creative in this being born,
Its restless, daring, fond aspirings hid:
Within the vortex of rebellion drawn,
He joined the shining ranks as others did.
Success but little had advanced; defeat
He thought so little, scarce to him were worse;
And, as he held in heaven inferior seat,
Less was his bliss, and lighter was his curse.
He formed no plans for happiness: content
To curl the tendril, fold the bud; his pain
So light, he scarcely felt his banishment.
Zophiël, perchance, had held him in disdain;
But, formed for friendship, from his o'erfraught soul
'Twas such relief his burning thoughts to pour
In other ears, that oft the strong control
Of pride he felt them burst, and could restrain no more.
Zophiël was soft, but yet all flame; by turns
Love, grief, remorse, shame, pity, jealousy,
Each boundless in his breast, impels or burns:
His joy was bliss, his pain was agony.
Such are the principal preter-human characters in the poem. Egla, the heroine, is a Hebress of perfect beauty, who lives with her parents not far from the city of Ecbatana, and has been saved, by stratagem, from a general massacre of captives, under a former king of Medea. Being brought before the reigning monarch to answer for the supposed murder of Meles, she exclaims,
Sad from my birth, nay, born upon that day
When perished all my race, my infant ears
Were opened first with groans; and the first ray
I saw, came dimly through my mother's tears.
Zophiël is described throughout the poem as burning with the admiration of virtue, yet frequently betrayed into crime by the pursuit of pleasure. Straying accidentally to the grove of Egla, he is struck with her beauty, and finds consolation in her presence. He appears, however, at an unfortunate moment, for the fair Judean has just yielded to the entreaties of her mother and assented to proposals offered by Meles, a noble of the country; but Zophiël causes his