Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), May 10, 1845, vol. 1, no. 19, p. ??

[page 296, column 2, continued:]

Saul, A Mystery. By the Author of “Christian Ballads,” “Athansaion,” etc. etc. etc. New York: D. Appleton, & Co.

This poem was announced as about to be published in the fall of 1842, but withheld for private reasons. It is the longest dramatic work ever written, we believe, by an American, — occupying more than 250 pages, large duodecimo. The history on which it is founded, is contained in the Books of Samuel, commencing with the twentieth chapter of the first book, and ending with the first chapter of the second. “It may be proper to say,” says the author in a note, “that I am not acquainted with any other poem in the language plotted [page 297:] on the same incidents. Mr. Sotheby's Epic, which very probably occupies the same ground, I believe I have never seen, and am sure that I never read.”

This we look upon as a very remarkable thing. How a poet, writing a long dramatic poem on the same theme, and with the same title and hero which have been already employed by another, could have forborne (at least after the completion of his own work) to peruse the work of his fellow-laborer in the field, is to our apprehension, we say, a very remarkable thing, and plainly shows Mr. Coxe to be a very remarkable man.

We have no faith in dramatic poems — they are paradoxical. What is poetical is not dramatic — what is dramatic is never poetical. “Saul,” however, is not entitled a “Dramatic Poem,” but a “Mystery” — and if there is any thing in the world we detest, it is a mystery of any kind. We confess, therefore, that we proceed to the perusal of this book with a host of prejudice. We do not think we shall like it, and if we do not, we shall endeavor to say so, in the plainest of all possible terms.

In our next “Journal,” we shall review the poem in full. At present, we have time only to extract a peculiar passage, — the whole of the first scene of the fourth act.

Merodach. There crashed an avalanche,

From highest Libanus:

And ho! another falls a-near,

Glancing a thousand moonbeams,

As the crystal rocks of ice,

Go thundering down below.

And hark! it is the mother-eagle screams,

As snaps the high branched pine,

And her nest and her brood ate buried.

Far, far, in the valley below,

The peasant awakes in fear,

As he hears the alarum on high,

And the booming destruction comes down!

He wakes, and he prayeth his prayers;

The prayers that he prayeth are vain.

A mountain is piled on his roof and his home,

And the cry, and th” crashing are still.

(Climbs higher.)

Earth, in these solitudes,

Makes bold to talk with GOD,

And lifts her head sublime to heaven,

Where breaks no mortal voice

On the long Sabbath of her quietness.

But spirits, where are ye

In icy fetters pining;

Ye who once chained the soul of Saal;

Ye whom the harp disarmed,

When David rallied his good angels,

To drag ye hither through the viewless?

Spirits, say where!

(Pauses.)

If such the might of song

Ye too shall have enchanters

Mimicking once more

The spell of Moses’ rod:

And Pytho shall be praised upon the lyre,

Loud as the Hebrew's Lord.

A blind old man shall be

To roam the sunny islands,

That float upon the sea,

And on their hills, and on their valleys,

Forever, shall his song enshrine

A fair idolatry.

(Climbs higher.)

Enchantress hear'st me not,

That calledst site afar?

I come to bid the spirits back again,

And seven beside, more strong.

Their harper foe is gone forever,

And Saul is thine once more.

Say witch, where art thou?

Voice. Come on!

Merodach. Ah, Magdiel, art thou there?

Voice. Ay, teaching the new seven. Did ye hear

The snowballs that we bowled upon head?