Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), December 27, 1845, vol. 2, no. 25, p. ???, col. ?

[page 386:]

The Opal: a Pure Gift for the Holidays — 1846. Edited by JOHN KEESE. With illustrations by J. Chapman. New York: J. C. Riker.

Through neglect, discourtesy, or something else, on the part of somebody, or perhaps of Nobody — we have received no copy of this year's Opal, and have no opportunity, therefore, of speaking of it in full. In glancing it over we find some very spirited contributions — by Mrs. Osgood, for example, Miss Lynch, Mrs. Mowatt, Mrs. Seba Smith, Mrs. Embury, Miss Gould, Tucker-man, Hoffman, Paulding, Schoolcraft, Whittier, and others. Our attention is especially arrested by Miss Anne C. Lynch's thoughtful and vigorous poem,

BONES IN THE DESERT.

Where plgrims [[pilgrims]] seek the Prophet's tomb

Across the Arabian waste,

Upon the ever shifting sands,

A fearful path is traced.

 

Far up to the horizon's verge,

The traveler sees it rise,

A line of ghastly bones that bleach

Beneath those burning skies.

 

Across it, tempelt and simoom

The desert sands have strewed,

But still that line of spectral white

Forever is renewed.

 

For while along that burning track

The caravans move on,

Still do the way-worn pilgrims fall,

Ere yet the shrine be won.

 

There the tired camel lays him down

And shuts his gentle eyes,

And there the fiery rider droops,

Toward Mecca looks and dies.

 

They fall unheeded from the ranks: —

On sweeps the-endless train,

But there to mark the desert path

Their whitening bones remain.

 

As thus I read the mournful tale

Upon the traveler's page,

I thought how like the march of life

Is this sad pilgrimage.

 

For every heart bath some fair dream,

Some object unattained,

And far off in the distance lies

Some Mecca to be gained.

 

But beauty, manhood, love and power

Go in their morning down,

And longing eyes and outstretched arms

Tell of the goal unwon.

 

The mighty caravan of life

Above their dust may sweep,

Nor shout, nor trampling feet shall break

The rest of those who sleep.

 

Oh, fountains that I have not reached,

That gush far off e’en now,

When shall I quench my spirit's thirst

Where your sweet waters flow?

 

Oh, Mecca of my life-long dreams,

Cloud-palaces that rise

In that far distance pierced by hope,

When will ye greet mine eyes? [column 2:]

 

The shadows lengthen towards the East

From the declining sun,

And the pilgrim, as ye still recede,

Sighs for the journey done.

The engravings and general getting-up of “The Opal” are discreditable in the last degree. A more wretched set of mezzotints we certainly never beheld.