The turf that hides her golden hair
With sweetest desert flowers shall bloom.

And while the moon her tender light
Upon the hallowed scene shall fling,
The mocking-bird shall sit all night
Among the dewy leaves, and sing.

In 1823 Mr. Brooks died, and a paternal uncle soon after invited the
poetess to the Island of Cuba, where, two years afterward, she
completed the first canto of "Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven," which
was published in Boston in 1825. The second canto was finished in Cuba
in the opening of 1827; the third, fourth and fifth in 1828; and the
sixth in the beginning of 1829. The relative of Mrs. Brooks was now
dead, and he had left to her his coffee plantation and other property,
which afforded her a liberal income. She returned again to the United
States, and resided more than a year in the vicinity of Dartmouth
College, where her son was pursuing his studies; and in the autumn of
1830, she went to Paris, where she passed the following winter. The
curious and learned notes to "Zophiel," were written in various
places, some in Cuba, some in Hanover, some in Canada, (which she
visited during her residence at Hanover,) some at Paris, and the rest
at Keswick, in England, the home of Robert Southey, where she passed
the spring of 1831. When she quitted the hospitable home of this much
honored and much attached friend, she left with him the completed
work, which he subsequently saw through the press, correcting the
proof sheets himself, previous to its appearance in London in 1833.

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 an