Paused, ere he would advance, for very bliss.
The joy of a whole mortal life he felt
In that one moment. Now, too long unseen,
He fain had shown his beauteous form, and knelt
But while he still delayed, a mortal rushed between.
This scene is in the sixth canto. In the fifth, which is occupied almost entirely by mortals, and bears a closer relation than the others to the chief works in narrative and dramatic poetry, are related the adventures of Zameia, which, with the story of her death, following the last extract, would make a fine tragedy. Her misfortunes are simply told by an aged attendant who had fled with her in pursuit of Meles, whom she had seen and loved in Babylon. At the feast of Venus Mylitta,
Full in the midst, and taller than the rest,
Zameia stood distinct, and not a sigh
Disturbed the gem that sparkled on her breast;
Her oval cheek was heightened to a dye
That shamed the mellow vermeil of the wreath
Which in her jetty locks became her well,
And mingled fragrance with her sweeter breath,
The while her haughty lips more beautifully swell
With consciousness of every charm's excess;
While with becoming scorn she turned her face
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: