th,
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 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