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Deuoteii to Citcraturc, Science, anil 3lrt, tlje Sons of temperance, (Diiii iTellotoslpp, iHasonrg, anil ‘(general Intelligence.
VOLUME I.
SEIiSfE S W ©Sflf.
LINES.
BY E. H. BURRINGTON.
Many lovely forms are parts
Os the temper of our hearts,
Not a flower can be uncurled
In the garden of the world ;
Not a flower cun bud or pine,
Young or old, unripe or ripe,
But of feeling, yours or mine,
Its existence is a type.
Flowers have all immortal spirits,
And they die not, though they wither;
Beauty ne’er the world inherits,
But it tells why it came hither.
Nothing beautiful can pass,
And no image leave in going ;
For the heart is like a glass
Evermore that imago showing.
Though forgotten where and when
We beheld or felt a glory,
Y"et like sunshine on the rain
It illumes life’s darker story.
None e’er knelt at Nature’s feet,
But found profit in the kneeling;
Thus I think the flowers most sweet
Are the types of sweetest feeling.
% Never mourn o’er faded flowers,
They have told their tale in blooming;
All our best and holiest powers
Are but flowers the bloom resuming.
Tho’ from us some flowers remove,
Y r et their kindred perish never,
Just like hearts which waste in love,
Leaving Love as fresh as ever.
DEATH OF CLEOPATRA.
She dared her fallen kingdom to behold,
In regal pride of majesty serene ;
She dared the coiling reptiles to unfold,
Courting their veuomed kiss with dauntless mein.
Sublimely fierce —death full before her eyes —
She spurned the thought, that she could e’er be seen
Swelling the Roman's pomp, his noblest prize !
A proud, reluctant slave !—a crownless queen !
Hor , 1, 38.
The evening sun shone in unclouded brilliancy
over the lovely gardens, that extended for many a
mile beyond the marble suburbs of the Egyptian
metropolis —the mightiest work of the famed con
querer, who, building it in the very warßonness of
pride, deemed it perchance the slightest of his
wonderful achievements. The roads which issued
from that great city, circulating like arteries from
the human heart, wealth and prosperity to the ex
tremities of her dominion, wandered amid brakes
and the thickest of the coolest verdue ; nor had
the almost tropic sun of those now scorched
and sterile climes the power to pierce the embow
ering foliage which covered this magnificent high
wav with a continuous vault of living freshness.
The glossy leaves of the dark fig, and the broad
canopy of the aspiring palms, towering a hundred
feet aloft to bask in the full glare of day, above
his head —a pavement of the milk white marble
of Canopus, cool as the snows of Atlas, beneath
his feet —and the waters from the distant Nile,
glancing and murmuring in their marble channels
on this side and on that —the way-farer might
travel on his path enjoying the breezy coolness of
more temperate climes, although he stood beneath
the intolerable brightness of an Egyptian sky.—
Far in the depth of those fairy gardens, girdled
as it were, by the groves of almost impenetrable
richness, watered by a hundred fountains, drawn,
in their secret canals, from the one mighty river
—that was to Egypt like the soul is to the human
frame —adorned by every luxury that could minis
ter happiness to the living, stood the mansion of
the dead— the mausoleum of the Ptolemies —the
palace-tomb of Cleopatra. Portico above portico,
gallery upon gallery, it towered a pile of snowy
alabaster, more ample in its vast accommodations,
more splendid in its sculptures, more rich in its
materials, than the proudest dwelling of a line of
kings. The lower stories of the building, sur
rounded by their double and triple colonades of
Corinthian architecture, were of that construction
which has obtained the title of Cyclopean, com
posed of gigantic-blocks, of stone fitted and dove
tailed, as it were, into each other, with a firmness
t at might well endure forever, but in these enor
m°us walls, there was no opening, door nor win-
Srn allest crevice, to admit the blessed
I§U ot day to those huge receptacles of the
leanest relics of mortality. Elsewhere so singu
ar ll lorm °f architecture would have been looked
pon as something unnatural and monstrous ; but
\ pt where every species of deception, and
at \ye should now term stage effect, was resor
et t 0 buildings, and particularly in such as
‘ eie ln tended for religious purposes, it was by no
means calculated to excite astonishment. Near
, summit of this superb edifice, sheltered from
e ? lare of the declining luminary by protecting
awnings of muslin—the fabric of the Egyptian
°° m > then known by the name of Byssns—was
Y°ng range of windows, on which the sunbeams
guttered with a brilliance which showed that they
, re fied with that most ancient of luxuries,
■■“ e newly invented glass.
. o a small but airy apartment -of this man
“Jli °l the dead, there were uow collected a
group of females, whose gorgeous draperies,
and the jewelled ornaments would seem to de
note the proud beauties of a barbaric court,
rather than the mourners of the soulless tenement,
which had been once a man. Situated at the sum
mit of the edifice, and commanding a prospect
far over the hills of aromatic gardens that sur
rounded it, even to the distant city—overlooking
the wide valley of the Nile, when'the ocean-like
channel of its giant river glancing like a stream
of molten gold to the evening sun, and the vast
cones of the Egyptian pyramids distinctly drawn
against the deep blue sky—that chamber might
well have vied with the most beautiful retreat
of kings and kaisar; nor were its internal dec
orations less splendid than the scenery which
its windows offered to view. Its walls of the
purest alabaster, polished with the radient exact
ness of the metalic mirrors, its pilaster of the same
rich materials, with their Corinthian capitals and
basis of solid virgin gold, its tesselated pavements
of a thousand dies, its couches glowing with the
pictured fabrics of the eastern loom, its curtains
of gauze, so delicate that they well nigh justified
the hyperbole which had named them woven air,
rendered it abefitting shrine to the form of beauty
which seemed the presiding spirit of the place.
On one of these couches there lay a figure of
almost superhuman majesty. Tho eyes were
closed and the short curls parted from the noble
brow; the features were not more pallid than is
often seen in life ; a strangely voluptuous smile
still slept upon the well-defined and yet unaltera
ble lip, and, but for something of a rigidity and
constraint in the position of the limbs, it might
well have been believed that the slumbers of the
warrior were not those which know no waking.
His hemlet, embossed with golden sculptures,
rested on the ground at the foot of the low bed,
its lofty crest of snow r y horsehair dancing in the
light air, that found its way into the chamber, and
casting its wavering shadows upon the features
of the dead; the jewelled corslet, which still res
ted upon the massive chest, was stained in sev
eral places with broad splashes of gore; but if
the blood had stained the face or the bare neck,
that showed above the gorget more strikingly white
from the contrast to the rich sunny tint of the
countenance, it had been washed off with a care
which had removed every sign of violence every
symptom of death. Perfumes had been liberally
sprinkled upon the crisp auburn locks ; censers
were steaming with the smoke of musk and am
bergris, and the garlands of the freshest flowers
were cast like fragrant fetters over the limbs of
the cold sleeper. But what were all those to a
single tear-drop from the mourner who sat beside
his bed, gazng with a fixed and meaning gaze,
upon the features of him, whom she had loved
so mightily, whom she had betrayed so madly.
Her hair: the uncurled raven hair of Ethiopia,
fell to her feet in strange profusion, not in the un
dulating flow of ringlets freed from restraint, but
in the strait shadowy masses, such as wo have
sometimes seen, and known not whether to praise
or censure, in some sacred painting of the Italian
school. Her lineaments, of the Coptic cast, chis
elled in their flowing lines of blended majesty
and softness, were such as all men are constrained
to admire, even despite their judgment; but her
form her limbs, her swan-like neck, her swelling
bust, the rounded outlines, the wavy motion, were
of a loveliness which, while they baffled every at
tempt at description, explained at once and justi
fied the passionate adoration of Julius, and the
frantic devotion of Triumvir. It was Cleopatra
who sat there, mourning, in desolate and speech
less wo, over the wreck of him wnom she had
loved alone ! Strange as it may seem, she loved
him for himself, for himself only. No delusion of
vanity—no pride of boasting a second rulei of the
universe her slave —had mingled with her deep
interested passion. The conquerer had been
merged in the man, the warrior in the lo\cr. In
peace or war, in triumph or defeat, absent or at
her side, in the flush of health, or in the frail hu
manity of sickness, he had been ever the chosen
idol of her heart; and never perhaps had she
loved him more entirely, or more fervently, than
at the very moment of that desertion of his cause,
in the hour of his utmost need, which had resulted
in the downfall of his honor and her happiness.
Dark indeed and incomprehensible are the mys
teries of a woman’s heart; impenetrable the mo
tives, unfathomable the sources, ot her hatred or
affection—often most tender in the heart when
coolest in appearance ; most passionate when
most unmoved; most faithful when most insincere.
It miffht have been from mere womanish capuce,
from a desire of probing the depth of her lover s
feelings ; from curiosity to learn and look “P°”
the conduct of a baffled conquerer, or more likely
yet from jealousythat his of honor and o^
b.,ed bi^-
She might have overlooked, m the moment of ac
tion, the consequences of her lhght, sicmig
SAVANNAH, GA., THURSDAY, OCTOBER IS, 1849.
have fancied the victory already gained, and a
desertion a matter of no moment; a desertion
that would wring the soul, without affecting the
cause of him whom she adored the most, when
she most wantonly trilled with his tortured heart.
She might have fancied that defeat if defeat
should ensue, would not be irreparable; that the
empire, lost to day, might be regained to-morrow ;
that the proud Triumvir might be taught his re
verse, when the government of the universe
should in aftertimes be won by their united for
ces, to consider that universe as the gift of Cleo
patra. It might have been one of those motives
singly, it might have been all united—felt, per
haps, hut not comprehended even by herself, that
had spurred her on, till escape was impossible,
and hope desperate. Still it was love that led her
now to curse the dav she was born—born to he
the fate of Antony.
##>' / *##*#
Her hands were folded on her lap, the fingers
unconsciously playing with a chain of mingled
strands of golden thread and hair of a dark au
burn hue. Her face was very pale, and cold,
almost stern in its passionless rigidity—the eye
was cast downwards immovably rivited upon the
countenance of the mighty dead ; hut from the
long dark lashes there hung no tear —all was
composed, silent self-restrained grief; an occa
sional shiver crept as it were, electrically through
her entire frame, and then her lips moved, as
though she were communing with some viewless
form, hut beyond this there was no motion and no
sound. At a distance beyond from the miserable
mistress sat a group of women attired, as has
been said, most gorgeously, but their sad and
clouded aspects offering a fearful contrast to their
sumptuous garments ; near them, and on the table
of the richest porphyry, negligently strewn with
instruments of music—the Grecian lute, the Egyp
tian systrum, and the Italian pipe ; with jewel
tiaras, perfumes and cosmetics, and all the luxu
ries of a regal toilet, drinking cups of agate, and
flasks of crystal, there stood a plain and country
looking basket, woven of the slender reeds that
grew beside the lake of Moeris, filled with the
dark and glossy leaves and purple fruits of a fig
tree. To a casual glance it might have seemed
there was nothing in the position or contents but
the simple offering of some grateful rustic to the
palate of his queen ; hut on the nearer view,
there might be seen upon the foliage long slimy
trails twining hither and thither, as if left by the
passage of some loathsome reptile. At times too,
there was alight rustling sound, a motion of the
leaves, not waving regularly as if shaken by the
breeze, but heaving up at intervals from the life
like struggles of something lurking beneath ; and
now a scaly back—a small black head with eyes
glowing like sparks of fire, and an arrowy tongue
quivering and darting about like a lambent flame
—it was the deadly aspic of the Nile, the most
fatal, the most desperately venomous of all the
serpents of Africa.
Deeply, fearfully skilled, in the dark secrets of
poisoning and incantation, the wife and sister of
Ptolemies had chosen this abhorred mode of
avenging the wrongs of Antony ; of baffling the
cool malignant hate of the little minded man
whom Rome’s adulation had even then begun to
style the August ; of freeing herself from the
chains, not emblematic, of Roman servitude ; from
the humiliation of being led along in gilded fet
ters behind the chariot wheels of the perpetual
consul; from the dungeon, the scaffold, and the
axe, which closed alike the triumph of the victor
and the misery of the vanquished. Already had
the news been conveyed to her—the stunning
news, that, save the name, she was no more a
queen ; but the rumor had fallen on a deaf or un
regarding ear. An earthquake, it is written, shook
the earth unnoticed by them who fought at Thra
symene—an empire crumbled into ruins, un
marked by her who had lost, who had destroyed
an Antony. After the first burst of agony was
over—when the self-immolated victim was born
to her in place of the burning, feeling, living
lover—she had caused the hated reptiles to be
brought to the tomb, which she had entered,
while yet alive, in the very recklessness of dis
simulation and caprice ; she had applied them to
her delicate bosom, and a thrill of triumphant ec
stacy had rushed through her frame, as she felt
the keen pang of their venotned fangs piercing
her flesh, and imbuing the very sources of life
with the ingredients'of death.
And now she satin patient expectation, brood
ing over the ruin she had wrought ; calmly wai
ting the a<mny that she new must convulse her
limbs, and distort her features from their calm
serenity, while her attendant maidens with strange
and unaccountable devotion, had heedlessly fol
lowed the example of her, whom they were de
termined to accompany faithfully, not merely to
the portals of the tomb, but in the dark regions
of futurity. Now however when the step was ta
ken from whigh their is no returning, the cour-
age that had buoyed them up for a moment and
impelled them to the fatal measure had deserted
them. In the aspect of each, remorse and pain,
and terror, were engraved in fearful variety.—
One gazing with fearful eyes over the glowing
landscape gloriously bathed in the radience of
that setting luminary; which would arise indeed
in renewed splendor but not for her. She saw
the distant hills on which she had sported in the
uncontaminated freshness of her youth, ere she
had been acquainted with the sin and sorrow of
courts —the nearer palaces, in whose vaulted halls
in happy, because thoughtless, merriment—and
her whole spirit was absorbed in that long wist
ful view of scenes never to be viewed again.—
Another stood as motionless as the marble column
that supported her, staring upcMi tier beloved mis
tress and the lifeless body ; but it was evident
that the images were not painted on her eye, were
not reflected on her mind ; at intervals a large
bright tear stole slowly down her checks, and lit
erally splashed on the mosaic pavement as it fell;
a third already sensible of the visible agonies that
accompany the action of poison on the human
system, rocked her body to and fro, every sepa
rate nerve writhing and quivering in the extremity
of pain, yet still retained so much consciousness
and even mastery over her tortures, as enabled
her to repress all further s} T mptoms of her ap
proaching desolulion, than an occasional choking
sob, a fearful and indefinite murmur between a
hiccough and a groan. It was a scene of horri
bly exciting interest, a scene on which a specta
tor feels that it is agony to gaze, while he can
not, for invaluable treasures, withdraw his gloat
ing e} r e from the fearful spectacle; a scene in
which, so strangely were terror and compassion
mingled, and interwoven with curiosity, no hu
man being could turn away ere he had looked
upon the end.
The pale haughty features of the senseless clay
that wielded and weaponed, bat a few short hours
ago, the energies of a gigantic soul—the deeply
sealed despair of the silent mourner, still full of
life and spirit—the wretched girls, repenting of
their rashness, yet repressing their own anguish*
lest its expression should augment that of her, for
whom they had cast life away, and for whom even
now—while the love of earth was uppermost in
their feelings—they felt that they should cast it
away again, could it be again redeemed—the still
ness of that moment, and the hateful reptiles
crawling and hissing among the beautiful fruits —
the sunshine without, and the gloom within—all
uniting to form a combination of incidents, as a
painter would term them, that no painter’s imag
ination, how vivid soever it might he, could have
created. It was, however, a scene that was rap
idly drawing to its conclusion; the girl on whose
frame the venom of the aspic had taken the strong
est effect, had already sunk upon the ffoor, and
it seemed by the long and gasping efforts with
which she caught her breath, that her minutes
were already numbered. Notwithstanding the
miserable blight in which she rolled over and
over in great agony, so callous had the feelings of
her companions been rendered by the immedi
ate pressure of their own calamities that, tender
and delicate beings as they were, with hearts ever
melting at the slightest indication of sorrow, each
one retained her station, wholly absorbed by her
own heavy thoughts, and careless of all besides.
It was at this crisis that a shrill and prolonged
flourish of trumpets arose, almost painfully to
the ear; it was a Roman trumpet. There was
a pause, a brief but awful pause, such as is often
left between the first peal of a thunder storm and
the bursting deluge of the shower. Again it rung
—nearer, and nearer yet —and now beneath the
very window of the Mausoleum.
As the first note sank into silence, the queen
had risen breathlessly to her feet, and there she
stood motionless as a statue, her eyes fixed upon
the brow of Antony, but her lips slightly quivered,
her head and her frame expressing the earnestness
with which she listened for the repetition of the
sounds—hut, as the second flourish smote her ear,
she threw her arm aloft in triumph, a flash of ex
ultation kindled that glorious brow like a sunburst,
and her eyes danced in their sockets with the
highly wrought ecstacy oTthe moment; hut while
her brow and eyes wore radiant with delight, the
wide expansion of the nostril and the curl of the
chiselled lip spoke volumes of defiance and con
tempt.
“It is too late!” she cried, in accents still clear
and musical, though strained far above the natural
pitch of her voice. “It is too late !—ye Roman
Robbers! —He whom your sacrilegious trumpets
would have but now aroused to vengeance—
from the lightning of whose eye ye would have
fled, like howling wolves before the bolts of Jove
—w T hose voice would have stunned you, like the
thunders of the Omnipotent —the conqueror of
the universe has sunk to sleep ; nor#can your
clamors wake him, to the annihilation of your au
dacious frenzy?”
NUMBER 33