Edgar Allan Poe's Petersburg by Jeffrey Abugel

Author:Jeffrey Abugel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2013-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

Self-portrait of the artist Thomas Sully, who was born in England but, after immigrating to the United States, spent time with his family of fellow painters in Petersburg and Richmond.

Thomas Sully, whose family of artists and actors had strong Petersburg ties, painted many portraits of the legendary Pocahontas. The lure of her tale influenced many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Virginia writers and artists, including Hiram Haines.

The predominant piece in the volume is a thirty-seven-page opus called “The Virginiad,” in which an Indian maiden serenades the full moon and her lover. Haines, like others of the time, was clearly influenced by the popularity of the story of John Smith and Pocahontas:

I love thee, sweet orb, in thy beauty now beaming. Mild emblem of peace and queen of the night: Upon my warm bosom thy calm looks are gleaming.

But ah! Thy view not my bosom’s delight: Oh! Not like that course is its love ever ranging. As vestal’s fire pure, so burns its first flame. Nor yet as thy face, will it ever be changing. A hundred new moons shall find it the same.

I love the white warrior from over the water. He’s brave in the fight and kind to his foe; and the heart that is these will slight not the daughter of the red chieftain who bears the strong bow; The necklace he gave me is the color of heaven, our priests oft tell us that all there is love; And sure ’tis now wrong, when the power is given. That earth should be like the regions above.

I’ll weave for my love a gay wampum belt shining with bright coral shells, so lovely and fair; And I’ll bind him a crest together entwining the pelican’s plumage with my waving hair. Oh! Then to him quick I smiling will bear them, on his brow and arms my hands shall them braid; That when he’s away the fair warrior may wear them, And look and remember his dark Indian maid.

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