{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_56575/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_56575","id":"gutenberg_56575","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56575","summary":null,"tags":["American poetry -- 19th century","Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Spiritualism -- Poetry"],"text":"Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Chuck Greif and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                 POEMS\n\n                                 FROM\n\n                            THE INNER LIFE.\n\n                                  BY\n\n                             LIZZIE DOTEN.\n\n                       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                \u201cAnd my soul from out that shadow\n                  Hath been lifted evermore.\u201d      POE.\n\n                \u201cThe kingdom of Heaven is within you.\u201d\n\n                       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                          FOURTEENTH EDITION.\n\n                                BOSTON:\n                       COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS,\n                          9 Montgomery Place.\n\n\n      Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863 by\n                           ELIZABETH DOTEN,\nIn the Clerk\u2019s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts\n\n                          ELECTROTYPED AT THE\n                      BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY,\n                            4 SPRING LANE.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\nA WORD TO THE WORLD (PREFATORY).                                       v\n\n\nPART I.\n\nTHE PRAYER OF THE SORROWING,                                           3\n\nTHE SONG OF TRUTH,                                                     6\n\nTHE EMBARKATION,                                                       9\n\nKEPLER\u2019S VISION,                                                      14\n\nLOVE AND LATIN,                                                       18\n\nTHE SONG OF THE NORTH,                                                21\n\nTHE BURIAL OF WEBSTER,                                                26\n\nTHE PARTING OF SIGURD AND GERDA,                                      31\n\nTHE MEETING OF SIGURD AND GERDA,                                      35\n\n\nPART II.\n\nTHE SPIRIT-CHILD. BY \u201cJENNIE.\u201d                                        41\n\nRECONCILIATION,                                                       48\n\nHOPE FOR THE SORROWING,                                               54\n\nCOMPENSATION,                                                         57\n\nTHE EAGLE OF FREEDOM,                                                 63\n\nMISTRESS GLENARE. BY \u201cMARIAN,\u201d                                        66\n\nLITTLE JOHNNY,                                                        70\n\n\u201cBIRDIE\u2019S\u201d SPIRIT-SONG,                                               73\n\nMY SPIRIT-HOME. [A. W. SPRAGUE.]                                      76\n\nI STILL LIVE. [A. W. SPRAGUE.]                                        80\n\nLIFE. [SHAKSPEARE.]                                                   86\n\nLOVE. [SHAKSPEARE.]                                                   92\n\nFOR A\u2019 THAT. [BURNS.]                                                 97\n\nWORDS O\u2019 CHEER. [BURNS.]                                              99\n\nRESURREXI. [POE.]                                                    104\n\nTHE PROPHECY OF VALA. [POE.]                                         109\n\nTHE KINGDOM. [POE.]                                                  118\n\nTHE CRADLE OR COFFIN. [POE.]                                         124\n\nTHE STREETS OF BALTIMORE. [POE.]                                     128\n\nTHE MYSTERIES OF GODLINESS. A LECTURE.                               134\n\nFAREWELL TO EARTH. [POE.]                                            162\n\n\n\n\nA WORD TO THE WORLD.\n\n\nIn presenting this volume to the public, I trust that I may be allowed,\nwithout incurring the charge of egotism, to say somewhat concerning my\nspiritual experience, and the manner in which these poems were\noriginated. I am, in a measure, under the necessity of doing this, lest\nsome over-anxious friend, or would-be critic, should undertake the work\nfor me, and thereby place me, either unconsciously or intentionally, in\na false position before the public.\n\nBy the advice of those invisible intelligences, whose presence and power\nI freely acknowledge, seconded by my own judgment, I have given to this\nwork the title of \u201cPoems from the Inner Life;\u201d for, aside from the\nexternal phenomena of Modern Spiritualism,--which, compared to the great\nprinciples underlying them, are but mere froth and foam on the ocean of\nTruth,--I have realized that in the mysterious depths of the Inner Life,\nall souls can hold communion with those invisible beings, who are our\ncompanions both in Time and Eternity. My vision has been dim and\nindistinct, my hearing confused by the jarring discords of earthly\nexistence, and my utterances of a wisdom, higher than my own, impeded by\nmy selfish conceits and vain imaginings. Yet, notwithstanding all this,\nthe solemn convictions of my spiritual surroundings, and the mutual ties\nof interest still existing between souls, \u201cwhether in the body or out of\nthe body,\u201d have been indelibly impressed upon me. From such experiences\nI have learned--in a sense hitherto unknown--that \u201cthe kingdom of Heaven\nis within me.\u201d I know that many sincere and earnest souls will decide at\nonce, in the integrity of their well-trained intellects, that this\nclaim to an intercourse with the invisible world is an extravagant\nassumption, and has no foundation in truth. To such I would say, I shall\nmake no effort to persuade your reason and judgment. I only offer to you\nas a suggestion, that which has been realized by me in my spiritual\nexperience, and has become to me an abiding truth, full of strength for\nthe present, and hope for the future. When your souls sincerely hunger\nafter such a revelation, you will seek for it, and according to your\nneed, you will be filled therewith. Until then, you and I, regarding\nthings from a different point of view, must inevitably understand them\ndifferently. There are various cups which Humanity must drink of, and\n\u201cbaptisms which it must be baptized with,\u201d and this manifestation of\nTruth, of which I am but one of the humble representatives, has laid its\ncontrolling hand upon me; for what purpose, in the mysterious results\nwhich lie concealed in the future, I cannot tell--I only know that it is\nso.\n\nLooking back upon my experience, I cannot doubt that I--with many\nothers--was destined to this phase of development, and designed for this\npeculiar work, before I knew conscious being. My brain was fashioned,\nand my nervous system finely strung, so that I should inevitably catch\nthe thrill of the innumerable voices resounding through the universe,\nand translate their messages into human language, as coherently and\nclearly as my imperfections would allow. The early influences of my\nchildhood, the experiences of later years, and more than all, that\nunutterable yearning for Beauty and Harmony, which I felt dimly\nconscious was somewhere in the universe, all tended to drive me back\nfrom the world, which would not and could not give me what I asked, to\nthe revelations of my inner life,--to the \u201cHeaven within me.\u201d It was\nonly through the cultivation of my spiritual nature that \u201cspiritual\nthings were to be discerned,\u201d and the stern necessity of my life was the\nTeacher which finally educated me into the perception of Truth.\n\nI turn back to the memories of my childhood--to that long course of\ntrying experiences through which I passed, guided by strange and\ninvisible influences; and that whole course of discipline has for me now\na peculiar significance. Those who were near and dear to me, and who\nwere most familiar with my habits of life, knew little of my intense\nspiritual experience. I was too much afraid of being ridiculed and\nmisunderstood to dare give any expression to the strange and indefinable\nemotions within me. Such ones, however, may call to mind the child who\noften, through the long winter evenings, sat in profound silence by the\nfireside, with her head and face enveloped in her apron, to exclude, as\nfar as possible, all external sight and sound. What I heard and saw then\nbut dimly returns to me; but even then the revelations from the \u201cHeaven\nwithin\u201d had commenced, and succeeding years have so strengthened and\nconfirmed my vision, that such scenes have become to me living truths\nand blessed realities. The \u201cHeaven\u201d that \u201clay about me in my infancy\u201d\nsent its rich glow through my childhood, and sheds its mystic brightness\nupon the pathway of my riper years.\n\nOften, in the retirement of a small closet, I spent hours in total\ndarkness, lying prostrate on the floor, beating the waves of the\nmysterious Infinite that rolled in a stormy flood over me, and with\nprayers and tears beseeching deliverance from my blindness and seeming\nunbelief. Then, when by my earnestness the spirit had become stronger\nthan the flesh, I would gradually fall into a deep trance, from which I\nwould arise strengthened and consoled by the assurance--from whence I\ncould not tell--that somewhere in the future I should find all the life,\nand light, and freedom that my soul desired. The only evidence or\nknowledge which those around me received of such visitations was\noccasionally a poem--some of them written so early in life, that the\nchildish chirography rendered them almost illegible. Because of these\nearly productions, it has been asserted that my claim to any individual\nspirit-influence was either a falsehood or delusion. I will only say in\nreply, that there is no need of entering upon any argument on the\nsubject. I claim both a general and particular inspiration. They do not,\nby any means, conflict; and what I do not receive from one, comes from\nthe other. For the very reason that I have natural poetic tendencies, I\nattract influences of a kindred nature; and when I desire it, or they\nwill to do so, they cast their characteristic inspirations upon me, and\nI give them utterance according to my ability. It is often as difficult\nto decide what is the action of one\u2019s own intellect and what is\nspirit-influence, as it is in our ordinary associations to determine\nwhat is original with ourselves and what we have received from\ncircumstances or contact with the mind of others. Yet, nevertheless,\nthere are cases where the distinction is so evident that it is not to be\ndoubted. Only one or two such well-attested instances is sufficient to\nestablish the theory. I am not willing to ignore one faculty or power of\nmy being for the sake of proving a favorite idea; and, on the contrary,\nI cannot conscientiously deny that, in the mysteries of my inner life, I\nhave been acted upon decidedly and directly by disembodied\nintelligences, and this, sometimes, by an inspiration characteristic of\nthe individual, or by a psychological influence similar to that whereby\nmind acts upon mind in the body. Under such influences I have not\nnecessarily lost my individuality, or become wholly unconscious. I was,\nfor the time being, like a harp in the hands of superior powers, and\njust in proportion as my entire nature was attuned to thrill responsive\nto their touch, did I give voice and expression to their unwritten\nmusic. They furnished the inspiration, but it was of necessity modified\nby the nature and character of the instrument upon which they played,\nfor the most skilful musician cannot change the tone of a harp to the\nsound of a trumpet, though he may give a characteristic expression of\nhimself through either.\n\nThe presence and influence of these powers is to me no new or recent\noccurrence, although I may not have understood them in the same light as\nI do at present. They have formed a part of all my past life, and I can\ntrace the evidence of spiritual assistance running like a golden thread\nthrough all my intellectual efforts. As I do not desire to practise any\ndeception upon the public, but on the contrary only wish to declare the\nsimple truth, I have published in this volume quite a number of poems,\nwritten several years previous to my appearance before the public as a\nmedium or a speaker. Although these were mostly wrought out of my brain\nby the slow process of thought, yet for some of these, even, I can claim\nas direct and special an inspiration as for those delivered upon the\nplatform. The first poem in this present work,--\u201cThe Prayer of the\nSorrowing,\u201d--and that which immediately succeeds it,--\u201cThe Song of\nTruth,\u201d--containing in itself an answer to the Prayer, were given to me\nunder peculiar circumstances. The first was the language of my own soul,\nintensified by an occasion of great mental anguish. The second,\nfollowing directly upon it, was an illumination of my entire being, when\nI seemed to have wept away the scales from my eyes, and \u201cby the deep\nconflict of my soul in prayer,\u201d to have broken the fetters of my\nmortality, and stepped forth into that freedom whereby I stood face to\nface with the ministering spirits, and heard that \u201cSong of Truth\u201d\nsounding through the universe. I have only known but few such\nvisitations in my lifetime, but when they have come, I have felt that I\nhave taken a free, deep breath of celestial air, and caught a glimpse of\nthe Realities of Things. As an immediate consequence, my spirit has\nbecome braver and stronger, and long after my inward vision was closed,\nthe cheering light of that blessed revelation has lingered in my heart.\n\nAnother poem, which bore evidence to me of an inspiration acting upon\nme, and external to myself, was the \u201cSong of the North,\u201d relating to the\nfate of Sir John Franklin and his men. I was desired to write an\nillustration for a plate, about to appear in the \u201cLily of the Valley,\u201d\nan Annual published by J. M. Usher, of Cornhill, Boston. I endeavored to\ndo so, but day after day passed by and my labor was in vain, for not one\nacceptable idea would suggest itself. The publisher sent for the\narticle, but it was not in being. One day, however, I was seized with an\nindefinable uneasiness. I wandered up and down through the house and\ngarden, till finally the idea of what I was to do became clearly\ndefined; then, with my paper and pencil, I hastened to a quiet corner in\nthe attic, where nearly all my poems had been written, and there I wrote\nthe Song of the North--so rapidly, that it was scarce legible, and I\nwas obliged to copy it at once, lest I should lose the connection. The\nnext day it seemed as foreign and strange to me as it would to any one\nwho had never seen it. At the time this was written (in April, 1853)\nstrong hopes were entertained of the discovery of Franklin and his men,\ntogether with their safe return; therefore I hesitated to make public\nthat which seemed a decided affirmation to the contrary. Nevertheless,\nso strong were my convictions as to the truth of the poem, that I\nallowed it to be published. Later revelations concerning the fate of\nthat brave adventurer and his companions gave to the poem somewhat of\nthe character of a prophecy.\n\nHow far I have ever written, independent of these higher influences, I\ncannot say; I only know that all the poems under my own name have come\nfrom the deep places of my \u201cInner Life;\u201d and in that self-same sacred\nretreat--which I have entered either by the intense concentration of all\nmy intellectual powers, or a passive surrender to the inspirations that\nmoved upon me--I have held conscious communion with disembodied spirits.\nAt such times it has been said I was \u201centranced;\u201d and although that term\ndoes not exactly express my idea, perhaps it is the best which can yet\nbe found in our language. The avenues of external sense, if not entirely\nclosed, were at least disused, in order that the spiritual perceptions\nmight be quickened to the required degree, and also that the world of\ncauses, of which earth and its experiences are but the passing effects,\nmight be disclosed to my vision. Certain it is that a physical change\ntook place, affecting both my breathing and circulation, and my\nclairvoyant powers were so strengthened that I could dimly perceive\nexternal objects from the frontal portion of my brain, even with my eyes\nclosed and bandaged; also, in that state, any excess of light was far\nmore painful than under ordinary conditions. If the communications given\nthrough my instrumentality have been weak, erroneous, and imperfect, it\nis no fault of my spirit-teachers, but arises rather from my own\ninability to understand or clearly express what was communicated to me.\n\nIn relation to the poems given under direct spirit-influence I would\nsay, that there has been a mistake existing in many minds concerning\nthem, which I take the present opportunity, as far as possible, to\ncorrect. They were not like lightning flashes, coming unheralded, and\nvanishing without leaving a trace behind. Several days before they were\ngiven, I would receive intimations of them. Oftentimes, and particularly\nunder the influence of Poe, I would awake in the night from a deep\nslumber, and detached fragments of those poems would be floating through\nmy mind, though in a few moments after they would vanish like a dream. I\nhave sometimes awakened myself by repeating them aloud. I have been\ninformed, also, by these influences, that all their poems are as\ncomplete and finished in spirit-life as they are in this, and the only\nreason why they cannot be repeated again and again is because of the\ndifficulty of bringing a human organism always into the same state of\nexaltation--a state in which mediums readily receive inspiration, and\nrender the poems with the least interference of their own intellect.\n\nAmong these spiritual poems will be found two purporting to come from\nShakspeare. This influence seemed to overwhelm and crush me. I was\nafraid, and shrank from it. Only those two poems were given, and then\nthe attempt was not repeated. I do not think that the poems in\nthemselves come up to the productions of his master mind. They are only\nintimations of what might have been, if he had had a stronger and more\neffectual instrument upon which to pour his inspirations. I have no\ndoubt that time will yet furnish one upon whom his mantle will fall; but\nI can only say that his power was mightier than I could bear. As I have\nregarded him spiritually, he seems to be a majestic intellect, but one\nthat overawes rather than attracts me; and my conclusion has been, that\nwhile in the flesh, although he was of himself a mighty mind, yet still\nhe spake wiser than he knew, being moved upon by those superior powers\nwho choose men for their mouthpieces, and oblige them to speak startling\nwords into the dull ear of the times. As all Nature is a manifestation\nof Deity, so all Humanity is a manifestation of mind,--differing,\nhowever, in degrees of development,--and one body serves as an\ninstrument to effect the purposes of many minds. This is illustrated in\nthe pursuits and employments of ordinary life, and has a far deeper\nsignificance when taken in connection with the invisible world.\n\nThe influence of Burns was pleasant, easy, and exhilarating, and left me\nin a cheerful mood. As a spirit, he seemed to be genial and kindly, with\na clear perception and earnest love of simple truth, and at the same\ntime a good-natured contempt for all shams, mere forms, and solemn\nmockeries. This was the way in which he impressed me, and I felt much\nmore benefited than burdened by his presence.\n\nThe first poem delivered by Poe, came to me far more unexpectedly than\nany other. By referring to the introductory remarks, copied from the\n\u201cSpringfield Republican,\u201d it will be seen that the supposition is\npresented, that I, or \u201cthe one who wrote the poem,\u201d must have been very\nfamiliar with the writings of Poe. As no one wrote the poem for me,\nconsequently I am the only one who can answer to the supposition; and I\ncan say, most conscientiously, that previous to that time I had never\nread, to my knowledge, any of his poems, save \u201cThe Raven,\u201d and I had not\nseen that for several years. Indeed, I may well say in this connection,\nthat I have read, comparatively speaking, very little poetry in the\ncourse of my life, and have never made the style of any author a study.\nThe influence of Poe was neither pleasant nor easy. I can only describe\nit as a species of mental intoxication. I was tortured with a feeling\nof great restlessness and irritability, and strange, incongruous images\ncrowded my brain. Some were bewildering and dazzling as the sun, others\ndark and repulsive. Under his influence, particularly, I suffered the\ngreatest exhaustion of vital energy, so much so, that after giving one\nof his poems, I was usually quite ill for several days.\n\nBut from his first poem to the last,--\u201cThe Farewell to Earth,\u201d--was a\nmarked, and rapid change. It would seem as though, in that higher life,\nwhere the opportunities for spiritual development far transcend those of\nearth, that by his quick and active perceptions he had seized upon the\nDivine Idea which was endeavoring to find expression through his life,\nboth in Time and Eternity; and that from the moment this became\napparent, with a volcanic energy, with the battle-strokes of a true\nhero, he had overthrown every obstacle, and hewn a way through every\nbarrier that impeded the free outgrowth and manifestation of his diviner\nself. His \u201cFarewell\u201d is not a mere poem of the imagination. It is a\nrecord of facts. I can clearly perceive, as his spirit has been revealed\nto me, that there was a deep significance in his words, when he said,--\n\n                                \u201cI will sunder, and forever,\n    Every tie of _human passion_ that can bind my soul to Earth--\n    Every _slavish_ tie that binds me to the things of little worth.\u201d\n\nAs he last appeared to me, he was full of majesty and strength,\nself-poised and calm, and it would seem by the expression of his\ncountenance, radiant with victory, that the reward promised to \u201chim that\novercometh,\u201d had been made his sure possession. Around his brow, as a\nspiritual emblem, was an olive-wreath, whose leaves glowed like fire. He\nstood upon the side of a mountain, which was white and glittering like\ncrystal, and the full tide of inspiration to which he gave utterance\ncould not be comprehended in human speech. That last \u201cFarewell,\u201d as it\nfound expression through my weak lips, was but the faintest possible\necho of that most musical and majestic lyric which thrilled the\nharp-strings of my being. In order to be fully realized and understood,\nthe soul must be transported to that sphere of spiritual _perceptions_,\nwhere there is no _audible_ \u201cspeech nor language,\u201d and where the \u201cvoice\nis not _heard_.\u201d\n\nObedient to the call of the Angels, he has \u201cgone up higher\u201d in the ways\nof Eternal Progress; and though, because of this change, he may no\nlonger manifest himself as he _was_, yet doubtless as he _is_, he will\nyet be felt as a Presence and a Power in the \u201cHeaven\u201d of many a human\nheart. Upon earth he was a meteor light, flashing with a startling\nbrilliancy across the intellectual firmament; but now he is a star of\never-increasing magnitude, which has at length gravitated to its own\nplace among the celestial spheres.\n\nIn saying thus much, I cannot so play the coward to my spiritual\nconvictions as to offer the slightest apology for any ideas I may have\nadvanced contrary to popular prejudices or time-honored opinions. O,\nthoughtful reader! if I have offended thee, say simply that these are\n_my_ convictions and not _yours_, and do not fear for the result; for in\nwhatsoever I purpose or perform, I \u201ccan do nothing against the\nTruth--only for it.\u201d I do not indulge in the conceit that this little\nwork has any important mission to perform, or that it will cause any\ncommotion in the literary world. But I have felt, as one by one these\npoems have been wrought out--by general or special inspiration--from my\n\u201cInner Life,\u201d that in this matter I had a work, simple though it might\nbe, to do, and my soul was sorely \u201cstraitened till it was\naccomplished.\u201d\n\nAs some of these poems, appearing at various times, have been severely\ncriticized in the past, so I would say now, that if any there should be,\nwho, through bigotry, or prejudice, or a desire to display their\nsuperior wisdom, should choose to criticize them in their present\nform--to such I shall make no answer. But to all those earnest and\ninquiring souls, who feel that in such experiences as I have described,\nor in the resources from which my soul has drawn its supply, there is\naught that is attractive or desirable to them, I would say, \u201cGod speed\nyou in your search for Truth!\u201d At the same time let me assure you, that\nin the depths of your own Inner Life there is a fountain of inspiration\nand wisdom, which, if sought aright, will yield you more abundant\nsatisfaction than any simple cup of the living water which I, or any\nother individual, can place to your lips. There are invisible teachers\naround you, the hem of whose garments I am unworthy to touch. \u201cThe\nwords that they speak unto you--they are Spirit and they are Life.\u201d \u201cIn\norder to _know_ more you must _be_ more.\u201d Faith strikes its roots deep\nin the spirit, and often Intuition is a safer guide than Reason. When a\nman, by constant practice, has so quickened his spiritual perceptions\nthat he can receive conscious impressions from his invisible attendants,\nhe will never be without counsellors.\n\n              \u201cLet Faith be given\n    To the still tones that oft our being waken--\n              They are of Heaven.\u201d\n\nThe Spirit-World is not so distant as it seems, and the veil of\nMateriality which hides it from our view, by hopeful and untiring\naspiration can be rent in twain. We only need listen earnestly and\nattentively, and we shall soon learn to keep step in the grand march of\nLife to the music of the upper spheres. As a popular author has\nbeautifully said, \u201cSilence is vocal, if we listen well.\u201d With a sublime\naccord, the great anthem of the Infinite \u201crolls and resounds\u201d through\nthe Universe, and whosoever will, can listen to that harmony, till all\nspecial and particular discords shall die out from the \u201cInner Life,\u201d and\nthe Heaven of the celestial intelligences shall blend with the \u201cHeaven\nwithin,\u201d in perfect unison!\n\n\n\n\nPOEMS\n\nFROM\n\nTHE INNER LIFE.\n\nPART I.\n\n\n\n\nPOEMS\n\nFROM THE INNER LIFE.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRAYER OF THE SORROWING.\n\n\u201cAnd there appeared an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him.\u201d\n\n\n                    God! hear my prayer!\n    Thou who hast poured the essence of thy life\n      Into this urn, this feeble urn of clay;\n    Thou who amid the tempest\u2019s gloom and strife\n      Art the lone star that guides me on my way;\n    When my crushed heart, by constant striving torn,\n      Flies shuddering from its own impurity,\n    And my faint spirit, by its sorrows worn,\n      Turns with a cry of anguish unto thee--\n                Hear me, O God! my God!\n\n    O, this strange mingling in of Life and Death,\n      Of Soul and Substance! Let me comprehend\n    The hidden secret of life\u2019s fleeting breath,\n      My being\u2019s destiny, its aim and end.\n    Show me the impetus that urged me forth,\n      Upon my lone and burning pathway driven;\n    The secret force that binds me down to earth,\n      While my sad spirit yearns for home and heaven--\n                Hear me, O God! my God!\n\n    The ruby life-drops from my heart are wrung,\n      By the deep conflict of my soul in prayer;\n    The words lie burning on my feeble tongue;\n      Aid me, O Father! let me not despair.\n    Save, Lord! I perish! Save me, ere I die!\n      My rebel spirit mocks at thy control--\n    The raging billows rise to drown my cry;\n      The floods of anguish overwhelm my soul--\n                Hear me, O God! my God!\n\n    Peace! peace! O, wilful, wayward heart, be still!\n      For, lo! the messenger of God is near;\n    Bow down submissive to the Father\u2019s will,\n      In \u201cperfect love\u201d that \u201ccasteth out all fear.\u201d\n    O, pitying Spirit from the home above!\n      No longer shall my chastened heart rebel;\n    Fold me, O fold me in thine arms of love!\n      I know my Father \u201cdoeth all things well;\u201d\n    I will not doubt his changeless love again.\n                Amen! My heart repeats, Amen!\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONG OF TRUTH.\n\n\n    From the unseen throne of the Great Unknown,\n        From the Soul of All, I came;\n    Not with the rock of the earthquake\u2019s shock,\n        And not with the wasting flame.\n    But silent and deep is my onward sweep,\n        Through the depths of the boundless sky;\n    I stand sublime, through the lapse of time,\n        And where God is, there am I.\n\n    In the early years, when the youthful spheres,\n        From the depths of Chaos sprung,\n    When the heavens grew bright with the new-born light,\n        And the stars in chorus sung--\n    To that holy sound, through the space profound,\n        \u2019Mid their glittering ranks I trod;\n    For I am a part of the Central Heart,\n        Co-equal and one with God.\n\n    The world is my child. Though wilful and wild,\n        Yet I know that she loves me still,\n    For she thinks I fled with her holy dead,\n        Because of her stubborn will;\n    And she weeps at night, when the angels light\n        Their watch-fires over the sky,\n    Like a maid o\u2019er the grave of her loved and brave;\n        But the Truth can never die.\n\n    One by one, like sparks _from_ the sun,\n        I have counted the souls that came\n    From the hand Divine;--all, all are mine,\n        And I call them by my name.\n    One by one, like sparks _to_ the sun,\n        I shall see them all return;\n    Though tempest-tost, yet they are not lost,\n        And not one shall cease to burn.\n\n    I only speak to the lowly and meek,\n        To the simple and child-like heart,\n    But I leave the proud to their glittering shroud,\n        And the tricks of their cunning art.\n    Like a white-winged dove from the home of love,\n        Through the airy space untrod,\n    I come at the cry which is heard on high,--\n        \u201cHear me, O God! my God!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE EMBARKATION.\n\n\u201cSo they left that goodly and pleasant city, which had been their\nresting-place near twelve years. But they knew they were _pilgrims_, and\nlooked not much to those things; but lifted their eyes to heaven, their\ndearest country, and quieted their spirits.\u201d--_E. Winslow._\n\n\n    The band of Pilgrim exiles in tearful silence stood,\n    While thus outspake, in parting, John Robinson the good:\n    \u201cFare thee well, my brave Miles Standish! thou hast a trusty sword,\n    But not with carnal weapons shalt thou glorify the Lord.\n    Fare thee well, good Elder Brewster! thou art a man of prayer;\n    Commend the flock I give thee to the holy Shepherd\u2019s care.\n    And thou, belov\u00e9d Carver, what shall I say to thee?\n    I have need, in this my sorrow, that thou shouldst comfort me.\n    In the furnace of affliction must all be sharply tried;\n    But nought prevails against us, if the Lord be on our side.\n    Farewell, farewell, my people!--go, and stay not the hand,\n    But precious seed of Freedom sow ye broadcast through the land.\n    Ye may scatter it in sorrow, and water it with tears,\n    But rejoice for those who gather the fruit in after years;\n    Ay! rejoice that ye may leave them an altar unto God,\n    On the holy soil of Freedom, where no tyrant\u2019s foot hath trod.\n    All honor to our sovereign, his majesty King James,\n    But the King of kings above us the highest homage claims.\u201d\n    Upon the deck together they knelt them down and prayed,\n    The husband and the father, the matron and the maid;\n    The broad blue heavens above them, bright with the summer\u2019s glow,\n    And the wide, wide waste of waters, with its treacherous waves below;\n    Around, the loved and cherished, whom they should see no more,\n    And the dark, uncertain future stretching dimly on before.\n    O, well might Edward Winslow look sadly on his bride!\n    O, well might fair Rose Standish press to her chieftain\u2019s side!\n    For with crucified affections they bowed the knee in prayer,\n    And besought that God would aid them to suffer and to bear;\n    To bear the cross of sorrow--a broader shield of love\n    Than the Royal Cross of England, that proudly waved above.\n    The balmy winds of summer swept o\u2019er the glittering seas;\n    It brought the sign of parting--the white sails met the breeze;\n    One farewell gush of sorrow, one prayerful blessing more,\n    And the bark that bore the exiles glided slowly from the shore.\n    \u201cThus they left that goodly city,\u201d o\u2019er stormy seas to roam;\n    \u201cBut they knew that they were pilgrims,\u201d and this world was not\n       their home.\n\n    There is a God in heaven, whose purpose none may tell;\n    There is a God in heaven, who doeth all things well:\n    And thus an infant nation was cradled on the deep,\n    While hosts of holy angels were set to guard its sleep;\n    No seer, no priest, or prophet, read its horoscope at birth,\n    No bard in solemn saga sung its destiny to earth,\n    But slowly,--slowly,--slowly as the acorn from the sod,\n    It grew in strength and grandeur, and spread its arms abroad;\n    The eyes of distant nations turned towards that goodly tree,\n    And they saw how fair and pleasant were the fruits of Liberty!\n    Like earth\u2019s convulsive motion before the earthquake\u2019s shock,\n    Like the foaming of the ocean around old Plymouth Rock,\n    So the deathless love of Freedom--the majesty of Right--\n    In all kindred, and all nations, is rising in its might;\n    And words of solemn warning come from the honored dead--\n    \u201cWoe, woe to the oppressor if righteous blood be shed!\n    Rush not blindly on the future! heed the lessons of the past!\n    For the feeble and the faithful are the conquerors at last.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nKEPLER\u2019S VISION.\n\n\u201cHow grand the spectacle of a mind thus restless--thirsting with\nunquenchable appetite after beauty and harmony! Never was there a finer\nexample of a spirit too vast to be satiated with the few truths around\nit, or one that more emphatically foreboded a necessary\nimmortality.\u201d--_Prof. R. P. Nichol._\n\n\n    Upon the clear, bright, northern sky,\n      Aurora\u2019s rainbow arches gleamed,\n    While, from their radiant source on high,\n      The countless host of evening beamed;\n    Each moving in its path of light--\n      Those paths by Science then untrod--\n    The silent guardians of the night,\n      The watchers by the throne of God.\n\n    Far up above the gloomy wood,--\n      The wavy, murmuring wood of pine,--\n    Upon the mountain side, there stood\n      A worshipper at Nature\u2019s shrine.\n    His spirit, like a breathing lyre,\n      At each celestial touch awoke,\n    And burning with a sacred fire,\n      His voice the solemn silence broke.\n\n    \u201cO, glittering host! O, golden line!\n      I would I had an angel\u2019s ken,\n    Your deepest secrets to divine,\n      And read your mysteries to men.\n    The glorious truth is in my soul,\n      The solemn witness in my heart--\n    Although ye move as one great whole,\n      Each bears his own appointed part.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    He slept. No! in a blissful trance\n      The feebler powers of Nature lay,\n    While upward, o\u2019er the vast expanse,\n      His eager spirit swept away,--\n    Away into those fields of light,\n      By human footsteps unexplored;\n    Order and beauty met his sight--\n      He saw, he wondered, and adored!\n\n    And o\u2019er the vast area of space,\n      And through the height and depth profound,\n    Each starless void and shining place\n      Was filled with harmony of sound.\n    Now, swelling like the voice of seas,\n      With the full, rushing tide of years,\n    Then, sighing like an evening breeze,\n      It died among the distant spheres.\n\n    Rich goblets filled with \u201cSamian wine,\u201d\n      Or \u201cLife\u2019s elixir, sparkling high,\u201d\n    Could not impart such joy divine\n      As that full chorus of the sky.\n    He might have heard the Orphean lute,\n      Or caught the sound of Memnon\u2019s lyre,\n    And yet his lips could still be mute,\n      Nor feel one spark of kindred fire.\n\n    But now, o\u2019er ravished soul and sense,\n      Such floods of living music broke,\n    That, filled with rapture too intense,\n      His disenchanted spirit woke.\n    Awoke! but not to lose the sound,\n      The echo of that holy song;\n    He breathed it to the world around,\n      And others bore the strain along.\n\n    O, unto few the power is given\n      To pass beyond the bounds of Time,\n    And lift the radiant veil of Heaven,\n      To view her mysteries sublime.\n    Yet Thou, in whose majestic light\n      The Source of Knowledge lies concealed,\n    Prepare us to receive aright\n      The truths that yet shall be revealed.\n\n\n\n\nLOVE AND LATIN.\n\nAmo--amare--amavi--amatum.[A]\n\n\n    Dear girls, never marry for knowledge,\n      (Though that should of course form a part,)\n    For often the head, in a college,\n      Gets wise at the cost of the heart.\n    Let me tell you a fact that is real--\n      I once had a beau in my youth,\n    My brightest and best \u201c_beau ideal_\u201d\n      Of manliness, goodness, and truth.\n\n    O, he talked of the Greeks and the Romans,\n      Of Normans, and Saxons, and Celts,\n    And he quoted from Virgil, and Homer,\n      And Plato, and ---- somebody else.\n    And he told me his deathless affection,\n      By means of a thousand strange herbs,\n    With numberless words in connection,\n      Derived from the roots of Greek verbs.\n\n    One night, as a sly innuendo,\n      When Nature was mantled in snow,\n    He wrote in the frost on the window,\n      A sweet word in Latin--\u201camo.\u201d\n    O, it needed no words for expression,\n      For that I had long understood;\n    But there was his written confession--\n      Present tense and indicative mood.\n\n    But O, how man\u2019s passion will vary!\n      For scarcely a year had passed by,\n    When he changed the \u201camo\u201d to \u201camare,\u201d\n      But instead of an \u201ce\u201d was a \u201cy.\u201d\n    Yes, a Mary had certainly taken\n      The heart once so fondly my own,\n    And I, the rejected, forsaken,\n      Was left to reflection alone.\n\n    Since then I\u2019ve a horror of Latin,\n      And students uncommonly smart;\n    True love, one should always put that in,\n      To balance the head by the heart.\n    To be a fine scholar and linguist\n      Is much to one\u2019s credit, I know,\n    But \u201cI love\u201d should be said in plain English,\n      And not with a Latin \u201camo.\u201d\n\n\nTHE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.\n\n\u201cIn March, of 1854, says the Cleveland Herald, several months before the\narrival of Dr. Rae, with his news of the probable death of the brave Sir\nJohn Franklin and his faithful comrades, we copied from the Lily of the\nValley for 1854, a beautiful poem by Miss Lizzie Doten, in reference to\nthese adventurers. The verses are touching and solemn as the sound of a\npassing bell, and appear _almost prophetic_ of the news that afterwards\ncame. \u2018The Song of the North\u2019 again becomes deeply interesting as\nconnected with the thrilling account brought home by the Fox--the last\nvessel sent in search of the lost adventurers to the icy North, and the\nlast that will now ever be sent on such an expedition.\u201d--_Buffalo Daily\nRepublic._\n\n\nSONG OF THE NORTH.\n\n\n    \u201cAway, away!\u201d cried the stout Sir John,\n      \u201cWhile the blossoms are on the trees,\n    For the summer is short, and the times speeds on\n      As we sail for the northern seas.\n    Ho! gallant Crozier, and brave Fitz James!\n      We will startle the world, I trow,\n    When we find a way through the Northern seas\n      That never was found till now!\n    A good stout ship is the \u2018Erebus,\u2019\n      As ever unfurled a sail,\n    And the \u2018Terror\u2019 will match with as brave a one\n      As ever outrode a gale.\u201d\n\n    So they bade farewell to their pleasant homes,\n      To the hills and the valleys green,\n    With three hearty cheers for their native isle,\n      And three for the English Queen.\n    They sped them away, beyond cape and bay,\n      Where the day and the night are one--\n    Where the hissing light in the heavens grew bright,\n      And flamed like a midnight sun.\n    There was nought below, save the fields of snow,\n      That stretched to the icy pole;\n    And the Esquimaux, in his strange canoe,\n      Was the only living soul!\n\n    Along the coast, like a giant host,\n      The glittering icebergs frowned,\n    Or they met on the main, like a battle plain,\n      And crashed with a fearful sound!\n    The seal and the bear, with a curious stare,\n      Looked down from the frozen heights,\n    And the stars in the skies, with their great, wild eyes,\n      Peered out from the Northern Lights.\n    The gallant Crozier, and brave Fitz James,\n      And even the stout Sir John,\n    Felt a doubt, like a chill, through their warm hearts thrill,\n      As they urged the good ships on.\n\n    They sped them away, beyond cape and bay,\n      Where even the tear-drops freeze,\n    But no way was found, by a strait or sound,\n      To sail through the Northern seas;\n    They sped them away, beyond cape and bay,\n      And they sought, but they sought in vain,\n    For no way was found, through the ice around,\n      To return to their homes again.\n    Then the wild waves rose, and the waters froze,\n      Till they closed like a prison wall;\n    And the icebergs stood in the sullen flood,\n      Like their jailers, grim and tall.\n    O God! O God!--it was hard to die\n      In that prison house of ice!\n    For what was fame, or a mighty name,\n      When life was the fearful price?\n    The gallant Crozier, and brave Fitz James,\n      And even the stout Sir John,\n    Had a secret dread, and their hopes all fled,\n      As the weeks and the months passed on.\n    Then the Ice King came, with his eyes of flame,\n      And looked on that fated crew;\n    His chilling breath was as cold as death,\n      And it pierced their warm hearts through!\n    A heavy sleep, that was dark and deep,\n      Came over their weary eyes,\n    And they dreamed strange dreams of the hills and streams,\n      And the blue of their native skies.\n\n    The Christmas chimes, of the good old times,\n      Were heard in each dying ear,\n    And the dancing feet, and the voices sweet\n      Of their wives and their children dear!\n    But it faded away--away--away!\n      Like a sound on a distant shore,\n    And deeper and deeper grew the sleep,\n      Till they slept to wake no more.\n\n    O, the sailor\u2019s wife, and the sailor\u2019s child,\n      They will weep, and watch, and pray;\n    And the Lady Jane, she will hope in vain,\n      As the long years pass away!\n    The gallant Crozier, and brave Fitz James,\n      And the good Sir John have found\n    An open way, to a quiet bay,\n      And a port where we all are bound!\n    Let the waters roar on the ice-bound shore,\n      That circles the frozen pole;\n    But there is no sleep, and no grave so deep,\n      That can hold a human soul.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BURIAL OF WEBSTER.\n\n\n    Low and solemn be the requiem above the nation\u2019s dead;\n    Let fervent prayers be uttered, and farewell blessings said!\n    Close by the sheltering homestead, beneath the household tree,\n    Where oft his footsteps lingered, here let the parting be!\n    Draw near in solemn silence, with slow and measured tread;\n    Come with the brow uncovered, and gaze upon the dead!\n    How like a fallen hero, in silent rest he lies!\n    With the seal of Death upon him, and its dimness in his eyes!\n    Speak! but there comes no answer. That voice of power is still\n    Which woke the slumbering Senate as with a giant\u2019s will!--\n    That voice, which rang so proudly back from the echoing walls,\n    In court and civic council, and legislative halls;\n    Which summoned back those spirits, who long were mute and still,--\n    The Pilgrim sires of Plymouth--the dead of Bunker Hill,--\n    And in their silent presence gave to the past a tongue\n    Like that which roused the nations when Freedom\u2019s war-cry rung.\n    But now, the roar of cannon, the thunder of the deep,\n    The battle-shock of earthquakes, cannot wake him from his sleep!\n    The foot that trod so proudly upon the earth\u2019s green sod,\n    The manly form, created in the image of its God,\n    The brow, where mental greatness had set her noblest seal,\n    The lip, whence thoughts were uttered like shafts of polished steel,--\n    All, all of these shall moulder back to their parent earth,\n    Back to the silent bosom from whence they sprang to birth!\n    The _man_,--the _living Webster_--passed with a fleeting breath!\n    Alas, for _human_ greatness!--the end thereof is death!\n    O! what is earthly glory? Ask C\u00e6sar, when he fell\n    At the base of Pompey\u2019s statue, slain by those he loved too well;\n    Ask the Carthaginian hero, who kept his fearful vow;\n    Ask Napoleon in his exile; ask the dead before ye now;--\n    And one answer, and one only, in the light of truth is given:\n    \u201cMan\u2019s highest earthly glory is to do the will of Heaven;\n    To rise and battle bravely, with dauntless moral might,\n    In the holy cause of Freedom, and the triumph of the Right!\u201d\n    For by this simple standard shall all at last be tried,\n    And not by earthly glory, or works of human pride.\n\n    O Webster! thou wast mighty among thy fellow-men;\n    And he who seeks to judge thee must be what thou hast been;--\n    Must feel thine aspirations for higher aims in life,\n    And know the stern temptations that urged thee in the strife;\n    Must let his heart flow largely from out its narrow span,\n    And meet thee freely, fairly, as man should meet with man.\n    What was lost, and what resisted, is known to One alone:\n    Then let him who stands here guiltless \u201cbe first to cast a stone\u201d!\n\n    Farewell! We give, with mourning, back to thy mother Earth\n    The robes thy soul rejected at its celestial birth!\n\n    A mightier one and stronger may stand where thou wast tried,\n    Yet he shall be the wiser that thou hast lived and died;\n    Thy greatness be his glory, thine errors let him shun,\n    And let him finish nobly what thou hast left undone.\n\n    Farewell! The granite mountains, the hill-side, and the sea,\n    Thy harvest-fields and orchards, will all lament for thee!\n    Farewell! A mighty nation awards thee deathless fame,\n    And future generations shall honor WEBSTER\u2019S name!\n\n\n\n\nTHE PARTING OF SIGURD AND GERDA.\n\n\u201cHe is a strong, proud man, such as a woman might, with pride, call her\npartner--\u2018if only--O! if he would but understand her nature, and allow\nit to be worth something.\u2019\u201d--_See Miss Bremer\u2019s \u201cBrothers and Sisters.\u201d_\n\n\n    She stood beneath the moonlight pale,\n      With calm, uplifted eye,\n    While all her being, weak and frail,\n      Thrilled with her purpose high;\n    For she, the long affianced bride,\n      Must seal the fount of tears,\n    And break, with woman\u2019s lofty pride,\n      The plighted faith of years.\n\n    Ay! she had loved as in a dream,\n      And woke, at length, to find\n    How coldly on her spirit gleamed\n      The dazzling light of mind.\n    For little was the true, deep love\n      Of that pure spirit known\n    To him, the cold, the selfish one,\n      Who claimed her as his own.\n\n    And what to him were all her dreams\n      Of purer, holier life?\n    Such idle fancies ill became\n      A meek, submissive wife.\n    And what were all her yearnings high\n      For God and \u201cFatherland\u201d\n    But vain chimeras, lofty flights,\n      While Sigurd held her hand?\n\n    And then uprose the bitter thought,\n      \u201cWhy bow to his control?\n    Why sacrifice, before his pride,\n      The freedom of my soul?\n    Better to break the golden chain,\n      And live and love apart,\n    Than feel the galling, grinding links\n      Wearing upon my heart.\u201d\n\n    He came,--and, with a soft, low voice,\n      In the pale gleaming light,\n    She laid her gentle hand in his--\n      \u201cSigurd, we part to-night.\n    Long have these bitter words been kept\n      Within this heart of mine,\n    And often have I lonely wept,--\n      I never can be thine.\u201d\n\n    Proudly, with folded arms he stood,\n      And cold, sarcastic smile--\n    \u201cHa! this is but a wayward mood,\n      An artful woman\u2019s wile.\n    But this I know: so long--so long\n      I\u2019ve held thee to thy vow,\n    That I have made the bond too strong\n      For thee to break it now.\u201d\n\n    \u201cYou know me not;--my lofty pride\n      Was hidden from your eyes;\n    But you have crushed it down so low\n      It gives me strength to rise.\n    O! all my bitter, burning thoughts\n      I may not, dare not tell!\n    Sigurd, my loved--_forever_ loved!\n      Farewell! once more, farewell!\u201d\n\n    One moment, and those loving arms\n      Were gently round him thrown;\n    One moment, and those quivering lips\n      Pressed lightly to his own:\n    And then he stood alone! _alone!_\n      With eyes too proud for tears;\n    Yet o\u2019er his stern, cold heart was thrown\n      The burning blight of years.\n\n    O man! so God-like in thy strength,\n      Pre\u00ebminent in mind,\n    Seek not with these high gifts alone,\n      A woman\u2019s heart to bind.\n    For, timid as a shrinking fawn,\n      Yet faithful as a dove,\n    She clings through life and death to thee,\n      Won by thine _earnest love_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MEETING OF SIGURD AND GERDA.\n\n\u201cAnd beautiful now stood they there, man and woman; no longer pale; eye\nto eye, hand to hand, as equals,--as partners in the light of\nheaven.\u201d--_See Miss Bremer\u2019s \u201cBrothers and Sisters.\u201d_\n\n\n    \u201cO, early love! O, early love!\n      Why does this memory haunt me yet?\n    Peace! I invoke thee from above,--\n      I cannot, though I would, forget.\n    How I have sought, with prayers and tears,\n      To quench this wasting passion-flame!\n    But after long, long, weary years,\n      It burns within my heart the same.\u201d\n\n    She wept--poor, sorrowing Gerda wept,\n      In the dark pine-wood wandering lone,\n    While cold the night-winds past her swept,\n      And bright the stars above her shone.\n    Poor, suffering dove! her song was hushed,\n      The blithesome song of other days,\n    Yet, O! when such true hearts are crushed,\n      They breathe their holiest, sweetest lays.\n\n    A step was heard. Her heart beat high;\n      Through the dim shadows of the wood\n    She glanced with quick and anxious eye--\n      Lo! Sigurd by her stood;--\n    And as the moon\u2019s pale, quivering rays\n      Stole through that lonely place,\n    He stood, with calm, impassioned gaze\n      Fixed on her tearful face.\n\n    \u201cGerda,\u201d he said, \u201cI come to speak\n      A long, a last farewell;\n    Some distant land and home I seek,\n      Far, far from thee to dwell.\n    O, since I lost thee, gentle one,\n      My truest and my best,\n    I have rushed madly, blindly on,\n      Nor dared to think of rest.\n\n    \u201cThe night that spreads her starry wing\n      Beyond the Northern Sea,\n    Does not a deeper darkness bring\n      Than that which rests on me.\n    Yet, no! I will not ask thy tears\n      For my deep tale of woe;\n    Forgetfulness will come with years;\n      Gerda--my love--I go!\u201d\n\n    \u201cStay! Sigurd, stay! O, why depart?\n      See, at _thy feet_ I bow;\n    O, cherished idol of my heart,\n      Reject--reject _me_ now!\u201d\n    But not upon the cold, damp ground,\n      Her bended knee she pressed;\n    Upheld, and firmly clasped around,\n      She wept upon his breast.\n\n    \u201cReject thee? No! When earth rejects\n      The sunshine\u2019s summer glow,\n    When Heaven one suppliant\u2019s prayer neglects,\n      Then will I bid _thee_ go.\n    And, by the watching stars above,\n      And by all things divine,\n    I swear to cherish and to love\n      This heart that beats to mine!\u201d\n\n    O, holy sense of wrongs forgot,\n      And injuries forgiven!\n    The human heart that feels thee not,\n      Knows not the peace of Heaven.\n    Ye bless\u00e9d spirits from above,\n      Who guide us while we live,\n    O, teach us also how to love,\n      And freely to forgive.\n\n\n\n\nPOEMS FROM THE INNER LIFE.\n\n\nPART II.\n\n\nThe succeeding poems were given under direct spirit influence before\npublic audiences. For many of them I could not obtain the authorship,\nbut for such as I could, the names are given.\n\n\n\n\nPOEMS FROM THE INNER LIFE.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPIRIT-CHILD.\n\nBY \u201cJENNIE.\u201d\n\n\n    O, thou holy Heaven above us!\n    O, ye angel hosts who love us!\n    Ye alone know how to prove us\n        By the discipline of life--\n    That we faint not in endeavor,\n    But with cheerful courage ever\n        Rise victorious in the strife.\n\n    O, my sister! O, my brother\n    I was once a mortal mother;\n    One sweet blossom, and no other,\n        Bloomed upon the household tree:\n    Very fragile, very tender,\n    Very beautiful and slender--\n        He was dear as life to me.\n\n    All the spring-time\u2019s fresh unfolding,\n    All of Art\u2019s exquisite moulding,\n    All that thrills one in beholding,\n        Centred in that fair young face;\n    While an angel-tempered gladness,\n    Almost blending into sadness,\n        Filled him with a nameless grace.\n\n    And I loved him without measure;\n    O, a ceaseless fount of pleasure\n    Found I in that little treasure!\n        And my heart grew good and great,\n    As I thanked the God of Heaven\n    That this precious one was given\n        Thus to cheer my low estate.\n\n    But, with all my prayers ascending,\n    I could hear a low voice blending,\n    Like some benison descending,\n        Saying, \u201cPlace thy hopes above;\n    For the test of all affection\n    Is the full and free rejection\n        Of all selfishness in love.\u201d\n\n    Then I felt a sad foreboding,\n    All my soul to anguish goading,\n    All my inward peace corroding;\n        And my rebel heart begun,\n    Crying wildly, that I would not\n    Yield my precious one--I could not\n        Say, \u201cThy will, not mine, be done.\u201d\n\n    Spring-time came with genial showers,\n    Bursting buds and opening flowers,\n    Singing birds and sunny hours,\n        Filling heaven and earth with light.\n    But the Summer--fair deceiver!--\n    Came with pestilence and fever,\n        Came my little bud to blight.\n\n    O\u2019er my threshold silent stealing,\n    Chilling every sense and feeling,\n    All the fount of grief unsealing,\n        Came the great white angel, Death;\n    And my flower upon my bosom\n    Withered, like an early blossom\n        Stricken by the north wind\u2019s breath.\n\n    And I saw him weakly lying,\n    Heard his parched lips faintly sighing,\n    Knew that he was dying--_dying!_\n        And my love was vain to save!\n    All my wild, impassioned pleading,\n    All my fervent interceding,\n        Could not triumph o\u2019er the grave.\n\n    Vainly did I crave permission,\n    That my anxious, tearful vision,\n    Might behold the land Elysian--\n        Forth into the unknown dark,\n    On that broad, mysterious river,\n    Did the hand of God, the Giver,\n        Launch that little, fragile bark.\n\n    Then my brain grew wild to madness,\n    Changing to a sullen sadness,\n    Tempered by no ray of gladness;\n        And I cursed the God above,\n    That, with Heaven all full of angels,\n    Sounding forth their glad evangels,\n        He should take my little dove.\n\n    Then my eyelids knew no sleeping:\n    Once my midnight watch while keeping,\n    I had wept beyond all weeping,--\n        Suddenly there seemed to fall\n    From my spiritual being,\n    From my inward sense of seeing,\n        Scales, as from the eyes of Paul.\n\n    Heavenly gales were round me playing,\n    Angel hands my soul were staying,\n    And I heard a clear voice saying,\n        \u201cCome up hither,--come and see!\n    O, thou sorrow-stricken mother!\n    Unto thee, as to none other,\n        Heaven unfolds her mystery.\u201d\n\n    God\u2019s own Spirit seemed to move me,\n    All the Heaven grew bright above me,\n    All the angels seemed to love me,--\n        Waved their white hands as they smiled;\n    And one, fair as Summer moonlight,\n    Crowned with starry gems of midnight,\n        Brought to me my angel child.\n\n    Like a flower in sunshine blowing,\n    Cheeks, and lips, and eyes were glowing,--\n    I could see that he was growing\n        Fairer than the things of earth.\n    \u201cThou mayst take him,\u201d said the spirit,\n    \u201cBack to earth, there to inherit\n        All the woes of mortal birth.\u201d\n\n    I had need of no advising;\n    In divinest strength arising,\n    All my selfishness despising,--\n        \u201cNay!\u201d I cried; \u201cnow first I know\n    What it is to be a mother,\n    To give being to another\n        Living soul, for joy or woe.\n\n    \u201cKeep him in these heavenly places,\n    Fold him in your pure embraces,\n    Teach him the divinest graces:\n        I return to earth again;\n    Not to sit and weep supinely,\n    But to live and love divinely.\u201d\n        And the angels said, \u201cAmen!\u201d\n\n    O thou holy Heaven above us!\n    O ye angel hosts who love us!\n    Ye alone know how to prove us,\n        By the discipline of life,--\n    That we faint not in endeavor,\n    But with cheerful courage ever\n        Rise victorious in the strife.\n\n\n\n\nRECONCILIATION.\n\n\n    God of the Granite and the Rose!\n      Soul of the Sparrow and the Bee!\n    The mighty tide of Being flows\n      Through countless channels, Lord, from thee.\n    It leaps to life in grass and flowers,\n      Through every grade of being runs,\n    Till from Creation\u2019s radiant towers\n      Its glory flames in stars and suns.\n\n    O, ye who sit and gaze on life\n      With folded hands and fettered will,\n    Who only see, amid the strife,\n      The dark supremacy of ill,--\n    Know, that like birds, and streams, and flowers,\n      The life that moves you is divine!\n    Nor time, nor space, nor human powers,\n      Your Godlike spirit can confine.\n\n    Once, in a form of human mould,\n      Upon this earthly plane I trod;\n    My faith was weak, my heart was cold,--\n      I had no hope, I knew not God.\n    Deep from my being\u2019s cup I quaffed,\n      With Life\u2019s Elixir brimming o\u2019er,\n    And madly sought to drain the draught,\n      That I might die, to live no more!\n\n    There came an angel to my side--\n      Not from the bowers of Paradise--\n    She was mine own, mine earthly bride,\n      With Heaven\u2019s pure sunshine in her eyes.\n    She wept and prayed, she knew not why--\n      Her Faith, not Reason, soared above:\n    She talked of God and Heaven--and I--\n      Well--I was happy in _her_ love.\n\n    Love was my all, my guiding star,\n      And like a wanderer in the night,\n    I hailed its radiance from afar,\n      Because it shone with _certain_ light;\n    But all those visions, bright and high,\n      Which the pure-hearted only see,\n    Of God and Immortality,\n      Could not reveal their light to me.\n\n    At length my precious one, my wife,\n      Held on her bosom\u2019s sacred shrine\n    A tender form,--an infant life,--\n      The union of her soul and mine.\n    O God! above that precious child\n      First did I breathe thy holy name,\n    While strong emotions, deep and wild,\n      Shook like a reed my manly frame.\n\n    I prayed for Heaven\u2019s eternal years;\n      I prayed for light, that I might see;\n    And even with stern manhood\u2019s tears,\n      I prayed for faith, O God, in Thee.\n    O, this poor world seemed far too small\n      To hold the measure of my love!\n    They were my God, my Heaven, my All--\n      My precious wife, my nestling dove.\n\n    Ay, then there came a fearful day,\n      A day of sorrow and of pain,\n    When, like a helpless child, I lay,\n      And fever burned in every vein.\n    Weeks came and went, they went and came,\n      Till Faith was Fear, and Hope had died,\n    And I could only breathe the name\n      Of the lone watcher at my side.\n\n    With patient love that could not fail,\n      And anxious care that knew no rest,\n    She sat, like a Madonna, pale,\n      With our sweet infant on her breast.\n    For _them_ I beat Life\u2019s stormy wave,\n      And struggled, face to face, with death;\n    For _them_ I tarried from the grave,\n      And firmly held my mortal breath.\n\n    But faint and weak at length I lay,\n      While darkness gathered over all--\n    I felt my pulses fluttering play\n      Like Autumn leaves about to fall.\n    My poor, tired heart could do no more,\n      But yielded the unequal strife;\n    Ay, then I prayed, as ne\u2019er before,\n      That I might have Eternal Life.\n\n    O God! my sainted mother\u2019s face\n      Gleamed through the deepening shades of death,\n    And from her lips these words of grace\n      Fell gently as the evening\u2019s breath:\n    \u201cChild of my love, I gave to earth\n      Thy mortal form in grief and pain--\n    Lo! now, in this, thy second birth,\n      I lend my strength to thee again.\u201d\n\n    That angel-presence stood revealed,\n      To her who sat beside my bed;\n    Our quivering lips Love\u2019s compact sealed,\n      And one, brief, parting word was said.\n    Then, leaning like a weary child\n      My head upon my mother\u2019s breast,\n    She bore me, changed and reconciled,\n      To the fair dwellings of the blest.\n\n    But oft at morn, or close of day,\n      I feel the love that toward me yearns,\n    And earthward, o\u2019er the starry way,\n      My answering spirit gladly turns.\n    O Death! O Grave! before Heaven\u2019s light\n      Thy gloomy phantoms quickly fly;\n    And man shall learn _this_ truth aright--\n      That he must _change_, but shall not _die_!\n\n    Shall change, as doth the summer rose,\n      The evening light, the closing year;\n    Shall sink into a sweet repose,\n      To waken in a happier sphere;--\n    Shall fall, as falls the harvest grain--\n      The ripened ears of golden corn,\n    Which yields its life, that yet again,\n      Through ceaseless change, it be re-born.\n\n    God of the Granite and the Rose!\n      Soul of the Sparrow and the Bee!\n    The mighty tide of Being flows\n      Through all thy creatures back to Thee.\n    Thus round and round the circle runs--\n      A mighty sea without a shore--\n    While men and angels, stars and suns,\n      Unite to praise Thee evermore!\n\n\n\n\nHOPE FOR THE SORROWING.\n\n[A poem delivered at the funeral service of Mr. Henry L. Kingman, of\nNorth Bridgewater, Mass., November, 1862.]\n\n\n    Ye holy ministers of Love,\n      Blest dwellers in the upper spheres,\n    In vain we fix our gaze above,\n      For we are blinded by our tears.\n    O, tell us to what land unknown\n    The soul of him we love has flown?\n\n    He left us when his manly heart\n      With earnest hope was beating high;\n    Too soon it seemed for us to part;\n      Too soon, alas! for him to die.\n    We have the tenement of clay,\n    But aye the soul has passed away.\n\n    Away, into the unknown dark,\n      With fearless heart and steady hand,\n    He calmly launched his fragile bark,\n      To seek the spirits\u2019 Father Land.\n    Say, has he reached some distant shore.\n    To speak with us on earth no more?\n\n    We gaze into unmeasured space,\n      And lift our tearful eyes above,\n    To catch the gleaming of his face,\n      Or one light whisper of his love.\n    O God! O Angels! hear our cry,\n    Nor let our faith in darkness die!\n\n    Hark! for a voice of gentle tone\n      The answer to our cry hath given,\n    Soft as \u00c6olian harpstrings blown,\n      Responsive to the breath of even--\n    \u201cI have not sought a distant shore;\n    Lo! I am with you--weep no more.\n\n    \u201cAy! Love is stronger far than death,\n      And wins the victory o\u2019er the Grave;\n    Dependent on no mortal breath,\n      Its mission is to guide and save.\n    Above the wrecks of Death and Time,\n    It triumphs, changeless and sublime.\n\n    \u201cStill shall my love its vigils keep,\n      True as the needle to the pole,\n    For Death is not a dreamless sleep,\n      Nor is the Grave man\u2019s final goal.\n    The larger growth,--the life divine,--\n    All that I hoped or wished, are mine.\u201d\n\n    Blest spirit! we will weep no more,\n      But lay our selfishness to rest;\n    The Providence, which we adore,\n      Has ordered all things for the best.\n    Life\u2019s battle fought, the victory won,\n    To nobler toils pass on! pass on!\n\n\n\n\nCOMPENSATION.\n\n\n    Out in the desolate midnight,\n      Out in the cold and rain,\n    With the bitter, bleak winds of winter\n      Driving across the plain--\n    In the ghastly gloom of the churchyard,\n      Crouching behind a stone,\n    Fleeing from what is called Justice,\n      I was safe with the dead alone.\n\n    All of the madness and evil\n      That into my nature was cast;\n    All of the demon or devil\n      Had filled up its measure at last.\n    Blood, on my hands, of a brother!\n      Blood--an indelible stain!\n    Burning, and smarting, and eating\n      Into my heart and my brain.\n\n    In woe and iniquity shapen,\n      Conceived by my mother in sin,\n    Forecast in a soil of pollution.\n      Did the life of my being begin.\n    I chose not the nature within me;\n      I was fated and fashioned by birth;\n    Foreordained to the darkness and evil,\n      The sins and the sorrows of earth!\n\n    The World was my foe ere it knew me;\n      It scattered its snares in my path:\n    Like a serpent, it charmed and it drew me,\n      Then met me with judgment and wrath!\n    I saw that the strong crushed the weaker,\n      That wickedness won in the strife,\n    And the greatest of crimes and of curses\n      Was the lot of a beggar in life!\n\n    E\u2019en the arm of God\u2019s mercy seemed shortened,\n      For all that could gladden or save;\n    The child of my love, and its mother,\n      Were laid in the pitiless grave!\n    Then, weakened and wasted by hunger--\n      Ay, famished without and within--\n    All homeless, and hopeless, and friendless,\n      O, what was there left me but sin?\n\n    I met in the wood-path a lordling,\n      Arrayed in his garments of pride,\n    And, like Moses who slew the Egyptian,\n      I smote him so sore that he died!\n    O, the blood on my hands and my garments!\n      O, the terrible face of the dead!\n    His gold could not tempt me to linger--\n      I turned in my horror, and fled!\n\n    I fled, but a terrible phantom\n      Pursued like a demon of wrath;\n    In the forest, the field, or the churchyard,\n      Its footsteps were close on my path;\n    And there, on the grave of my loved ones,\n      As freezing and famished I lay,\n    I was seized by the human avenger,\n      And borne to the judgment away!\n\n    O, the prison! the sentence! the gallows!\n      That last fearful struggle for breath!\n    The rush, and the roar, and confusion,\n      The depth and the darkness of death!\n    O man! I have sinned and have suffered;\n      The climax of evil is past;\n    But the justice of time may determine\n      That _you_ were more guilty at last!\n\n    Then long did I struggle with phantoms,\n      And wandered in darkness and night,\n    Till there came to my soul, in its prison,\n      The form of an Angel of Light.\n    I thought, in my blindness and darkness,\n      That he was the Infinite God,\n    Who had come in the might of his vengeance\n      To smite with his merciless rod.\n\n    So I cursed Him--and cursed Him--_and cursed Him_!\n      That He, in his greatness and power,\n    Had summoned my soul into being,\n      And made me to suffer one hour.\n    I cursed Him for all of my sorrow,\n      For all of my weakness and sin,\n    For all of my hatred and evil,\n      For darkness without and within.\n\n    My words were all molten and glowing,\n      As if from a furnace they came,\n    And the breath of my wrath made them hotter,\n      Till they burned with the fierceness of flame.\n    Then a light that was in me grew brighter,\n      Like sunshine poured into the heart;\n    I felt all my burdens grow lighter,\n      And the dross from my nature depart.\n\n    \u201cMy brother,\u201d replied the bright Angel,\n      \u201cLet the name of the Highest be blessed!\n    Lo! he renders thee blessing for cursing!\n      His will and His way are the best.\n    Thy soul in His sight hath been precious,\n      Since the birth of thy being began;\n    Thou art judged by the need of thy nature,\n      And not by the standard of man.\u201d\n\n    Then out of my cursing and madness,\n      And out of the furnace of flame,\n    My soul, like a jewel of beauty,\n      Annealed through life\u2019s processes came.\n    The forms of my loved ones were near me,\n      The night of my sorrow had passed;\n    God grant you, O mortals, who judged me,\n      As full an acceptance at last!\n\n\n\n\nTHE EAGLE OF FREEDOM.\n\n\n    O, Land of our glory, our boast, and our pride!\n    Where the brave and the fearless for Freedom have died,\n    How clear is the lustre that beams from thy name!\n    How bright on thy brow are the laurels of fame!\n    The stars of thy Union still burn in the sky,\n    And the scream of thine Eagle is heard from on high!\n    His eyrie is built where no foe can invade,\n    Nor traitors prevail with the brand and the blade!\n\nCHORUS.\n\n    The Eagle of Freedom, in danger and night,\n    Keeps watch o\u2019er our flag from his star-circled height.\n    From mountain and valley, from hill-top and sea,\n    Three cheers for the Eagle, the Bird of the Free!\n                Hurrah! Hurrah!\n    Hurrah for the Eagle, the Bird of the Free!\n\n    Mount up, O thou Eagle! and rend, in thy flight,\n    The war-cloud that hides our broad banner from sight!\n    Guard, guard it from danger, though war-rent and worn,\n    And see that no star from its azure is torn!\n    Keep thy breast to the storm, and thine eye on the sun,\n    Till, true to our motto, THE MANY ARE ONE!\n    Till the red rage of war with its tumult shall cease,\n    And the dove shall return with the olive of peace.\n\nCHORUS.\n\n    The Eagle of Freedom, in danger and night,\n    Keeps watch o\u2019er our flag from his star-lighted height.\n    From mountain and valley, from hill-side and sea,\n    Three cheers for the Eagle, the Bird of the Free!\n                Hurrah! Hurrah!\n    Hurrah for the Eagle, the Bird of the Free!\n\n    O, sons of the mighty, the true, and the brave!\n    The souls of your heroes rest not in the grave:\n    The holy libation to Liberty poured,\n    Hath streamed, not in vain, from the blood-crimsoned sword.\n    Henceforth, with your Star-Spangled Banner unfurled,\n    Your might shall be felt to the ends of the world,\n    And rising Republics, like nebul\u00e6, gleam,\n    Wherever the stars of your nation shall beam.\n\nCHORUS.\n\n    The Eagle of Freedom, sublime in his flight,\n    Shall rest on your banner, encircled with light;\n    And then shall the chorus, in unison be,\n    Three cheers for the Eagle, the Bird of the Free!\n                Hurrah! Hurrah!\n    Hurrah for the Eagle, the Bird of the Free!\n\n\n\n\nMISTRESS GLENARE.\n\nBY \u201cMARIAN.\u201d\n\n\n    A virtuous woman is Mistress Glenare--\n      Or, at least, so the world in its judgment would say;--\n    With an orderly walk and a circumspect air,\n      She never departs from the popular way.\n    Every word that she speaks is well measured and weighed;\n      Her friends are selected with scrupulous care;\n    And in all that she does is her prudence displayed,\n      For a virtuous woman is Mistress Glenare!\n\n    Her youth has departed, and with it has fled\n      The impulse which gives to the blood a new start,\n    Which oftentimes turns from the reasoning head,\n      To trust to the wisdom of God in the heart.\n    Thus the robes of her purity never are stained,\n      And her feet are withheld from the pitfall and snare;\n    Where nothing is ventured, there nothing is gained:\n      O, a virtuous woman is Mistress Glenare!\n\n    She makes no distinction of sinners from sin;\n      Her words are like arrows, her tongue is a rod;\n    She sees no excuse for the evil within,\n      But condemns with the zeal of a partialist God!\n    On a background of darkness, of sorrow and shame,\n      Her own reputation looks stainless and fair;\n    So she builds up her fame, through her neighbors\u2019 bad name:\n      O, a virtuous woman is Mistress Glenare!\n\n    She peeps and she listens, she watches and waits,\n      Nor Satan himself is more active than she\n    To expose in poor sinners the faults and bad traits,\n      Which she fears that the Lord might not happen to see.\n    When the Father of Spirits looks down from above\n      On the good and the evil, the frail and the fair,\n    How must he regard, with _particular_ love,\n      This virtuous woman--good Mistress Glenare!\n\n    O, Mistress Glenare! in the drama of life\n      You are acting a _very respectable_ part;\n    You have known just enough of its envious strife\n      To deceive both the world and your own foolish heart.\n    But say, in some moment of clear common sense,\n      Did you never in truth and sincerity dare\n    To ask the plain question, aside from pretence,\n      How you looked to the angels, dear Mistress Glenare?\n\n    The glory of God has enlightened their eyes:\n      No longer, through darkness, they see but in part,\n    And the robes of your righteousness do not suffice\n      To cover the lack of true love in the heart.\n    You look shabby, and filthy, and ragged, and mean--\n      E\u2019en with those you condemn, you but poorly compare!\n    Go! wash you in Charity till you are clean;\n      You will change for the better, dear Mistress Glenare.\n\n    Your thoughts have been run in the popular mould,\n      Like wax that is plastic and easily melts;\n    Till now, like a nondescript, lo, and behold!\n      You are neither yourself, nor yet any one else.\n    Of tender compassion, forgiveness, and love,\n      Your nature has not a _respectable_ share;\n    You are three parts of serpent, and one of the dove--\n      Very badly proportioned, dear Mistress Glenare.\n\n    Your noblest and purest affections have died,\n      Like summer-dried roses, your spirit within;\n    Your heart has grown arid, and scarce is supplied\n      With sufficient vitality even to sin.\n    But would you be true to your virtuous name,\n      There is _one_ we commend to your tenderest care;\n    To deal with her wisely will add to your fame:\n      That poor sinful woman is--Mistress Glenare.\n\n\n\n\nLITTLE JOHNNY.\n\n[A poem delivered by Miss Lizzie Doten at the close of a lecture in\nSpringfield, May 10, and addressed to the parents of Little Johnny--Mr.\nand Mrs. Thomas A. Denison, of Chicopee, Mass.]\n\n\n    Sing not, O blessed angels!\n      To those who truly mourn,\n    But come with gifts of healing,\n      For heart-strings freshly torn.\n    Ah! human hearts are tender,\n      And wounds of love are deep:\n    Sing not, O blessed angels!\n      But \u201cweep with those who weep.\u201d\n\n    Come not, O spirit-teachers!\n      With wisdom from above,\n    But come with soft, low whispers\n      Of sympathy and love.\n    Truths seem uncertain shadows\n      Beneath the clouds of care;\n    Come, then, in friendly silence,\n      And strengthen them to bear.\n\n    What will ye bring, O angels,\n      To soothe the troubled breast?\n    \u201cWe will bring the cherished loved one\n      From the mansions of the blest.\n    Like a wandering dove returning,\n      He shall nestle in each heart;\n    They will feel his bless\u00e9d presence,\n      And their sorrow shall depart.\n\n    \u201cWe will lead them from their darkness\n      Out to the shining light,\n    And scenes of heavenly beauty\n      Shall greet their longing sight.\n    There shall they see their loved one,\n      Free from his earthly pain;\n    Their souls shall cease from sorrow,\n      And shall ask him not again.\n\n    \u201cO, we only opened gently\n      His little prison door;\n    He stepped into the sunshine,\n      And then returned no more.\n    He dwells not now in weakness,\n      In the spirit\u2019s narrow cell,\n    But yet remains forever\n      To those who loved him well.\u201d\n\n    What will ye bring, O teachers!\n      To those who suffer loss?\n    \u201cWe will bring them faith, and patience,\n      And strength to bear their cross,--\n    To bear it bravely, calmly,\n      Although the way seem long,\n    Till hearts that bled with anguish\n      Shall burst into a song.\n\n    \u201cThey shall walk in Faith\u2019s clear sunshine,\n      With souls renewed in youth,\n    And the little child shall lead them\n      To a knowledge of the truth.\n    Tell them the loving angels\n      Watch o\u2019er their darling boy--\n    They are sharers of their sorrow,\n      And helpers of their joy.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\u201cBIRDIE\u2019S\u201d SPIRIT-SONG.\n\n[At the conclusion of a lecture in Boston, the following poem was\naddressed to the chairman (Mr. L. B. Wilson). It purported to come from\nAnna Cora, Mr. Wilson\u2019s only child, who passed to the spirit-world at\nthe age of 12 years and 7 months. She was always called by the pet name\n\u201cBirdie.\u201d]\n\n\n    With rosebuds in my hand,\n    Fresh from the Summer-land,\n    Father, I come and stand\n      Close by your side.\n    You cannot see me here,\n    Or feel my presence near,\n    And yet your \u201cBirdie\u201d dear\n      Never has died.\n\n    O, no! for angels bright,\n    Out of the bless\u00e9d light,\n    Shone on my wondering sight,\n      Singing, \u201cWe come!\n    Lamb for the fold above--\n    Tender, young, nestling dove--\n    Safe in our arms of love,\n      Haste to thy home.\u201d\n\n    Mother! I could not stay;\n    In a sweet dream I lay,\n    Wafted to Heaven away,\n      Far from the night;\n    Then, with a glad surprise,\n    Did I unclose my eyes,\n    Under those cloudless skies,\n      Smiling with light!\n\n    O! were you with me there,\n    Free from your earthly care,\n    All of my joy to share,\n      I were more blest.\n    But it is best to stay\n    Here in the earthly way,\n    Till the good angels say,\n      \u201cCome to your rest!\u201d\n\n    Check, then, the falling tear;\n    Think of me still as near.\n    Father and mother dear,\n      Soon on that shore,\n    Where all the loved ones meet,\n    Resting your pilgrim feet,\n    Shall you with blessings greet\n      \u201cBirdie\u201d once more.\n\n\n\n\nMY SPIRIT-HOME.\n\n\u201cWe find the following beautiful stanzas in the Evening Courier,\npublished in Portland, Me. They were composed in spirit-life by Miss A.\nW. Sprague, and spoken under spirit influence by Miss Lizzie Doten, at\nthe close of her lecture in that city, on Sunday evening, March 22d. The\nlines are evidently from the spirit of Miss Sprague, who passed to the\nspirit-world last summer, from her home in Vermont, as there are\nallusions in it to incidents which took place during her illness, in\nOswego, N. Y., about a year since. Allusion is also made to a poem\nwritten by her and published in the _Banner_, and also to another poem\nof hers, \u2018I wait, I wait at the golden gate.\u2019\u201d--_Banner of Light._\n\n\n    I come, I come from my spirit-home,\n      Like a bird in the early spring,\n    To the loved ones here, whom my heart holds dear,\n      A message of love to bring.\n    O, the heavens are wide, but they cannot divide\n      The spirits whom love makes free!\n    The green old earth, and the land of my birth,\n      With its homes, are still dear to me.\n\n    The phantoms of pain in my burning brain\n      Have fled from the Heaven\u2019s clear light;\n    I lie no more on the lake\u2019s lone shore,\n      In the fever dreams of night.\n    O, it was not late when I fled from fate,\n      And that which the world calls sin;\n    No longer \u201cI wait at the golden gate,\u201d\n      For the angels have let me in.\n\n    O, not too soon, though at life\u2019s high noon,\n      Was the close of my earthly day;\n    As the roses fade, ere the evening shade,\n      I passed from the earth away.\n    And I knew not the blight of the bitter night,\n      Which withers the autumn flowers,\n    Or the lengthening years, with their weight of fears,\n      That burden the spirit\u2019s powers.\n\n    In the forest wide, by the lake\u2019s green side,\n      The angels had whispered low;\n    From \u201cover the sea\u201d they had called to me,\n      And I knew that I soon must go;\n    But I felt no fear when I knew they were near,\n      Nor shrank from the narrow way,\n    For I caught faint gleams of the crystal streams,\n      And the light of the heavenly day.\n\n    O! the angels bright, with their robes of light,\n      The clasp of each gentle hand,\n    And the eyes that smiled on earth\u2019s weary child,\n      As I entered the better land!\n    But words are weak when the soul would speak\n      Of the angel-home above;\n    Faint visions alone are to man made known,\n      Of that dwelling of light and love.\n\n    My home is there, in that world so fair,\n      But the space is not deep or wide\n    Which lies between this earthly scene\n      And the home on the other side.\n    The thought of love, like a carrier dove,\n      Shall the heart\u2019s fond message bear,\n    And the angel bands, with their willing hands,\n      Shall answer each earnest prayer.\n\n    Fare ye well! farewell! My spirit can dwell\n      In the earthly form no more;\n    But whither I go, and the _way_, ye shall know,\n      To your home on the other shore.\n    Soon \u201cover the sea\u201d ye shall walk with me,\n      On the hills by the angels trod,\n    In the garments white, of the sons of light,\n      In the freedom and peace of God.\n\n\n\n\nI STILL LIVE.\n\n[Given under the inspiration of Miss A. W. Sprague, at the conclusion of\na lecture in Philadelphia, October 25, 1863.]\n\n\n    O Thou, whose love is changeless,\n      Both now and evermore;\n    Source of all conscious being!\n      Thy goodness I adore.\n    Lord, I would ever praise Thee,\n      For all Thy love can give;\n    But most of all, O Father!\n      I thank Thee that I live.\n\n    I live! O ye who loved me!\n      Your faith was not in vain;\n    Back through the shadowy valley\n      I come to you again.\n    Safe in the love that guides me,\n      With fearless feet I tread--\n    My home is with the angels--\n      O, say not I am dead!\n\n    Not dead! O, no, but lifted\n      Above all earthly strife;\n    Now first I know the meaning,\n      And feel the power of life--\n    The power to rise uncumbered\n      By woe, or want, or care;\n    To breathe fresh inspiration\n      From pure, celestial air;--\n\n    To feel that all the tempests\n      Of human life have passed,\n    And that my ark, in safety\n      Rests on the mount at last;\n    To send my soul\u2019s great longings,\n      Like Noah\u2019s dove, abroad,\n    And find them swift returning,\n      With signs of peace from God;--\n\n    To soar in fearless freedom\n      Through broad, blue, boundless skies\n    And catch the radiant gleaming\n      Of love-lit, angel eyes;\n    To feel the Father\u2019s presence\n      Around me, near or far,\n    And see His radiant glory\n      Stretch onward, star by star;--\n\n    To feel those grand upliftings\n      That know not space nor time;\n    To hear all discords ending\n      In harmony sublime;\n    To know that sin and error\n      Are dimly understood,\n    And that which man calls Evil\n      Is undeveloped Good;--\n\n    To stand in spell-bound rapture\n      On some celestial height,\n    And see God\u2019s glorious sunshine\n      Dispel the shades of night;\n    To feel that all creation\n      With love and joy is rife;--\n    This, O my earthly loved ones,\n      This is Eternal Life!\n\n    There, eyes that closed in darkness\n      Shall open to the morn;\n    And those whom death had stricken,\n      Shall find themselves new-born;\n    The lame shall leap with gladness,\n      The blind rejoice to see;\n    The slave shall know no master,\n      And the prisoner shall be free.\n\n    There, the worn and heavy-laden\n      Their burdens shall lay down;\n    There, crosses, borne in meekness,\n      At length shall win the crown;\n    And lonely hearts that famished\n      For sympathy and love,\n    Shall find a free affection\n      In the angel-home above.\n\n    O, children of our Father!\n      Weep not for those who pass,\n    Like rose-leaves gently scattered,\n      Like dew-drops from the grass.\n    Ay, look not down in sadness,\n      But fix your gaze on high;\n    They only dropped their mantles--\n      Their souls can never die.\n\n    They live! and still unbroken\n      Is that magnetic chain,\n    Which, in your tearful blindness,\n      You thought was rent in twain.\n    That chain of love was fashioned\n      By more than human art,\n    And every link is welded\n      So firm it cannot part.\n\n    They live! but O, not idly,\n      To fold their hands to rest,\n    For they who love God truly,\n      Are they who serve him best.\n    Love lightens all their labor,\n      And makes all duty sweet;\n    Their hands are never weary,\n      Nor way-worn are their feet.\n\n    Thus by that world of beauty,\n      And by that life of love,\n    And by the holy angels\n      Who listen now above,\n    I pledge my soul\u2019s endeavor,\n      To do whate\u2019er I can\n    To bless my sister woman,\n      And aid my brother man.\n\n    O Thou, whose love is changeless,\n      Both now and evermore,\n    Source of all conscious being!\n      Thy goodness I adore.\n    Lord, I would ever praise Thee\n      For all Thy love can give;\n    But most of all, O Father,\n      I thank Thee that I live.\n\n\n\n\n[The two following poems were given under an influence purporting to be\nthat of Shakspeare.]\n\nLIFE.\n\n\n      \u201cTo be, or not to be,\u201d is not \u201cthe question;\u201d\n    There is no choice of Life. Ay, mark it well!--\n    For Death is but another name for Change.\n    The weary shuffle off their mortal coil,\n    And think to slumber in eternal night.\n    But, lo! the man, though dead, is living still;\n    Unclothed, is clothed upon, and his Mortality\n    Is swallowed up of Life.\n\n      \u201cHe babbles o\u2019 green fields, then falls asleep,\u201d\n    And straight awakes amid eternal verdure.\n    Fairer than \u201cdreams of a Midsummer\u2019s Night,\u201d\n    The fields Elysian stretch before him.\n    No \u201cTempest\u201d rends the ever peaceful bowers\n    Of asphodel, and fadeless amaranth;\n    No hot sirocco blows with poisonous breath;\n    No midnight frights him with its goblins grim,\n    Presaging sudden death. No Macbeth there,\n    Mad with ambition, plotteth damning deeds;\n    No Hamlet, haunted by his father\u2019s ghost,\n    Stalks wildly forth intent on vengeance dire.\n    The curse of Cain on earth is consummate,\n    And knows no resurrection. Spirits learn\n    That spirit is immortal, and no poisoned cup,\n    Or dagger\u2019s thrust, or sting of deadly asp,\n    Can rob it of its Godlike attribute.\n    This mortal garb may be as full of wounds\n    And bloody rents as royal C\u00e6sar\u2019s mantle;\n    Yet that which made it man or C\u00e6sar liveth still.\n\n      Man learns, in this Valhalla of his soul,\n    To love, nor ever finds \u201cLove\u2019s Labor Lost.\u201d\n    No two-faced Falstaff proffers double suit;\n    No Desdemona mourns Iago\u2019s art;\n    And every Romeo finds his Juliet.\n    The stroke of Death is but a kindly frost,\n    Which cracks the shell, and leaves the kernel room\n    To germinate. What most consummate fools\n    This fear of death doth make us! Reason plays\n    The craven unto sense, and in her fear\n    Chooses the slow and slavish death of life,\n    Rather than freedom in the life of death.\n    \u201cThus _Ignorance_ makes cowards of us all,\u201d\n    And blinds us to our being\u2019s best estate.\n    Madly we cling to life through nameless ills,\n    Pinched by necessity, and scourged by fate,\n    Fainting in heat and freezing in the cold,\n    While war, and pestilence, and sore distress,\n    Fever and famine, fire and flood, combine\n    To drive the spirit from its wreck of clay.\n\n      O, poor Humanity! How full of blots,\n    And stains, and pains, and miseries thou art!\n    Here let me be thine Antony, and plead\n    Thy cause against the slayers of thy peace.\n    Though wounded, yet thou art not dead, thou child\n    Of Immortality--thou heir of God!\n    He who would slay thee, be he brute or Brutus,\n    Plunges the dagger in his own vile heart.\n    And yet thy wounds are piteous. I could weep\n    That aught so fair from the Creator\u2019s hand\n    Should be so marred and mangled, like a lamb\n    Torn by the ravening wolves. Here, let me take\n    Thy mantle, pierced with gaping, ghastly wounds,\n    From daggers clutched by ingrate hands. O Truth!\n    How many, in thy sacred name, have slain\n    Humanity, thinking they did God service!\n    Rome, and not C\u00e6sar--Doctrines, and not Men.\n\n      I cannot count the wounds which lust for power,\n    And wealth, and place, and precedence have made.\n    But, O! the keenest, deepest, deadliest stabs\n    Of all, were made by false Philosophy\n    And false Theology combined--\n    Philosophy, that knew not what it did;\n    Theology, that did not what it knew.\n    See here! This rent made by the fear of God,\n    That gracious God, whose \u201cmercy seasons justice,\u201d\n    Who feeds the raven, clothes the lilies, heeds\n    The sparrow when it falls, and sends his rain\n    Alike upon the evil and the good.\n    And yet they were all \u201chonorable men\u201d\n    Who taught this doctrine--\u201c_honorable men!_\u201d\n    Whose failing was a lack of common sense.\n\n      And, lo! here is another--Fear of Truth--\n    Blind Superstition made this horrid rent,\n    And Bigotry quick followed up the thrust.\n    O, \u2019tis an eye weeping great tears of blood!\n    An eagle eye, that dared to love the light\n    Which Bigotry and Superstition feared,\n    Lest it should make their deeds of evil plain.\n    Thus is it, he who dares to see a Truth\n    Not recognized in creeds, must die the death.\n    But noon-day never stayed for bats and owls,\n    And Truth\u2019s clear light shall yet arise and shine.\n\n      See here: another wound--The fear of Death--\n    That bless\u00e9d consummation of this life,\n    Which soothes all pain, makes good all loss, revives\n    The weak, gives rest and peace, makes free the slave,\n    Levels all past distinctions, and doth place\n    The beggar on a footing with the king.\n    O, poor Humanity! those who conspired\n    To slay thee, through exceeding love for God,\n    And for the glory of His mighty name,\n    Smote at the very centre of thy peace,\n    And damning doubts, like daggers\u2019 thrusts, attest\n    How zealously they aimed each cruel blow.\n\n      And yet, this rent and bloody mantle is not thee.\n    Slain, but not dead--thy spirit shall arise\n    And face thy startled enemies again,\n    As royal C\u00e6sar\u2019s ghost appeared to Brutus,\n    In Sardis\u2019 and Philippi\u2019s tented plains.\n    Thou royal heir to kingdoms yet unknown!\n    A mightier than C\u00e6sar is thy Friend.\n    He stays the hand of Cassius, Brutus, all\n    Who aim their weapons at thy life, and dulls\n    Their daggers\u2019 points against thy deathless soul.\n    From every gaping wound of fear or doubt,\n    Murder or malice, sorrow or despair,\n    Thy spirit leaps as from a prison door.\n    It laughs at death and daggers, as it flies\n    To hold companionship with spirits blest;\n    And having thus informed itself of life,\n    The question then,--\u201cTo be, or not to be?\u201d--\n    Is swallowed up in Immortality.\n\n\n\n\nLOVE.\n\n[Shakspeare.]\n\n\n    O World! somewhat I have to say to thee.\n    O sin-sick, heart-sick, soul-sick, love-sick World!\n    So ailing art thou, both in part and particle,\n    That solid truth thy stomach ill digests.\n    Yet, since thou art my mother, I will love thee,\n    And heedless of thy frowns, \u201cwill speak right on.\u201d\n\n      That which belongs to all men is least prized;\n    The thing most common is least understood.\n    That which is deep and silent is divine;\n    And there is nought on earth so craved, so common,\n    So misunderstood, or so divine, as Love.\n    When meted in proportion to man\u2019s need,\n    \u201cMeasure for measure\u201d it doth purify,\n    Exalt, and make him equal with the gods.\n    He feeds upon ambrosia, and his drink\n    Is nectar; high Olympus cannot yield\n    Delights more grateful to his soul and sense.\n    Parnassus fails his rapture to express,\n    And Helicon hath less of inspiration.\n    But, prithee, should he chance to drink too deep\n    Of the exhilarating draught,--should plunge\n    Him head and ears into this \u2019wildering flood,--\n    Mark, then, what marvellous diversions\n    From the centre of his gravity ensue.\n    Judgment is scouted--sober common sense\n    Yields to imagination\u2019s airy flights;\n    Upon a swift-winged hippogriff he mounts,\n    To seek the fair Arcadia of his dreams.\n    He builds him castles--basks in moonshine--feeds\n    Among the lilies--pours his passion forth\n    In amorous canticles and burning sighs--\n    Makes him a bed of roses, and lies down\n    To revel in his rainbow-colored dreams--\n    Until some turn, some ill-begotten chance,\n    Most unexpectedly invades his peace,\n    And castles, moonshine, roses, rainbows fly,\n    And leave him to the stern realities of life.\n    Alas, poor Human Nature! Even fools\n    Must learn through sad experience to grow wise.\n\n      Love is the highest attribute of Deity;\n    And he who loves divinely is most blest.\n    It purgeth passion from the soul and sense,\n    And makes the man a unit in himself;\n    Head, eyes, hands, heart, all work in unison,\n    And beasts, and savages, and rudest hinds,\n    All feel alike its exercise of power.\n\n      Ambition cannot walk with it; for he\n    Who learns to live and love aright, loves all,\n    And finds preferment in the general weal.\n    Though, Proteus like, it takes a thousand forms,\n    It doth o\u2019ercome all evil with its good,\n    Casteth out devils--sensuality, and sin,\n    And green-eyed jealousy, and hate; and like\n    Chrysostom, golden-mouthed, it doth attune\n    The words of common speech to sweet accord,\n    And gives significance to simplest things.\n\n      It buddeth out in tender infancy,\n    Like fresh-blown violets in the early spring,\n    And giveth form and fashion to all life.\n    For, by its character, it doth decide\n    What elements and essences the soul\n    Shall draw from contact with material things.\n    As roses draw their blushes, lilies whiteness,\n    Violets their azure, from the same dull earth,\n    So Love extracts the sweetnesses of Life,\n    And doth so mingle all within her crucible,\n    That she creates the difference between\n    Immortal souls. The fiery heart of youth,\n    Full of high aims and generous purposes of good,\n    Swells like the ocean-waves beneath the moon,\n    And brooketh no restraint, until it finds\n    Its living counterpart, and mergeth all\n    It hath of truth, and manliness, and might,\n    Into a second and a dearer self.\n\n      So goes the world! and strong necessity\n    Creates the law of action, whose results\n    Join issue with the love of God himself.\n    O jealous, wanton, ill-conceited World!\n    How little dost thou understand the deep\n    Significance and potency of Love!\n    Thou hast defiled thyself with gross perversions,\n    Till purity of love is but a jest,\n    Or reckoned with the fantasies of fools.\n\n      O, I would take thee, dear Humanity,\n    And set thee face to face with perfect Love.\n    She is thy mother. Love and Wisdom met\n    United by Eternal Power. The worlds\n    Sprang forth from chaos; and the love which brought\n    Them into being doth sustain them still.\n    The monad and the angel rest alike\n    Within its all-embracing arms; and life,\n    And death, with all that makes our mortal state,\n    Are cradled at the footstool of this power.\n    Then, sweet Humanity, thou favored child\n    Of God, look up! An everlasting chain\n    Doth bind thee to the mighty heart of all.\n    Love\u2019s labor never can be lost. He who\n    Created, shall, through Love, perfect and save;\n    And that which hath such poor expression here,\n    Shall find fruition in a brighter sphere.\n\n\n\n\nFOR A\u2019 THAT.\n\n[The following poem was given under the inspiration of Robert Burns.]\n\n\n    Is there a luckless wight on earth,\n      Oppressed wi\u2019 care and a\u2019 that,\n    Who holds his life as little worth,\n      His home is Heaven for a\u2019 that--\n        For a\u2019 that, and a\u2019 that.\n      There\u2019s muckle joy for a\u2019 that;\n    He\u2019s seen the warst o\u2019 hell below,\n      His home is Heaven for a\u2019 that.\n\n    The weary slave that drags his chain,\n      In toil and grief, and a\u2019 that,\n    Shall find relief from a\u2019 his pain,\n      And rest in Heaven from a\u2019 that.\n        From a\u2019 that and a\u2019 that.\n      There\u2019s freedom there from a\u2019 that,\n    For Justice throws into the scale\n      A recompense for a\u2019 that.\n\n    Puir souls, in right not unco strong,\n      Through love and want and a\u2019 that,\n    There sure is power to right their wrong,\n      And save their souls, for a\u2019 that--\n        For a\u2019 that, and a\u2019 that.\n      The Lord is guid for a\u2019 that;\n    The de\u2019il himsel\u2019 can turn and mend,\n      And come to Heaven for a\u2019 that.\n\n    On Scotia\u2019s hills the gowans spring,\n      The heather blooms, and a\u2019 that;\n    The mavis and the merl\u00e9 sing,\n      But Heaven\u2019s my home for a\u2019 that--\n        For a\u2019 that, and a\u2019 that.\n      I wadna\u2019 change for a\u2019 that.\n    He who once finds the Heaven aboon\n      Will not come back for a\u2019 that.\n\n\n\n\nWORDS O\u2019 CHEER.\n\n[Given under the inspiration of Robert Burns.]\n\n\n    GUID FRIENDS:\n        ALTHOUGH not present to your sight,\n        I gie ye greeting here to-night;\n        Not claiming to be perfect quite,\n            Frae taint o\u2019 passion,\n        Yet will I hauld my speech aright,\n            In guid Scotch fashion.\n\n        O, could some cantie[B] word o\u2019 mine,\n        But make your careworn faces shine,\n        Or cause the hearts in grief that pine,\n            To throb with pleasure,\n        Then wad my cup to auld lang syne,\n            Fill to its measure.\n\n        The gracious powers above us, know\n        How sair a weight of want and woe\n        Must be the lot of those who go\n            Through Earth to Heaven;\n        But aye, the life aboon will show\n            Wherefore \u2019twas given.\n\n        And that guid God who loves us a\u2019,\n        Who sees the chittering[C] sparrow fa\u2019,\n        Will never turn his face awa\u2019,\n            Though you should stray;\n        But all his wandering sheep will ca\u2019\n            Back to the way.\n\n        So muckle[D] are the cares o\u2019 men,\n        That Truth at times is hard to ken,\n        And Error, to her grousome[E] den,\n            So dark and eerie,\n        Wiles those who have na heart to men\u2019;[F]\n            Puir wanderers weary.\n\n        Alack! how mony a luckless wight\n        Has gane agley[G] in Error\u2019s night,\n        Not that he had less love for right\n            Than countless ithers;\n        But that he lacked the keener sight\n            Of his guid brithers.\n\n        Lo! Calvin, Knox, and Luther, cry\n        \u201cI have the Truth\u201d--\u201cand I\u201d--\u201cand I.\u201d--\n        \u201cPuir sinners! if ye gang agley,\n            The de\u2019il will hae ye,\n        And then the Lord will stand abeigh,\n            And will na save ye.\u201d\n\n        But hoolie[H] hoolie! Na sae fast;\n        When Gabri\u00e9l shall blaw his blast,\n        And Heaven and Earth awa\u2019 have passed,\n            These lang syne saints,\n        Shall find baith de\u2019il and hell at last,\n            Mere pious feints.\n\n        The upright, honest-hearted man,\n        Who strives to do the best he can,\n        Need never fear the Church\u2019s ban,\n            Or hell\u2019s damnation;\n        For God will need na special plan\n            For his salvation.\n\n        The one who knows our deepest needs,\n        Recks little how man counts his beads,\n        For Righteousness is not in creeds,\n            Or solemn faces;\n        But rather lies in kindly deeds,\n            And Christian graces,\n\n        Then never fear; wi\u2019 purpose leal,[I]\n        A head to think, a heart to feel\n        For human woe and human weal,\n            Na preachin\u2019 loun[J]\n        Your sacred birthright e\u2019er can steal\n            To Heaven aboon.\n\n        Tak\u2019[K] tent o\u2019 truth, and heed this well:\n        The man who sins makes his ain hell;\n        There\u2019s na waurse de\u2019il than himsel\u2019;\n            But God is strongest:\n        And when puir human hearts rebel,\n            He haulds out longest.\n\n        With loving kindness will he wait,\n        Till all the prodigals o\u2019 fate\n        Return unto their fair estate,\n            And blessings mony;\n        Nor will he shut the gowden gate\n            Of Heaven on ony.\n\n\n\n\nRESURREXI.\n\n\u201cA REMARKABLE POEM.--The following striking poem was recited by Miss\nLizzie Doten, a Spiritual trance-speaker, at the close of a recent\nlecture in Boston. She professed to give it impromptu, as far as she was\nconcerned, and to speak under the direct influence of Edgar A. Poe.\nWhatever may be the truth about its production, the poem is, in several\nrespects, a remarkable one. Miss Doten is, apparently, incapable of\noriginating such a poem. If it was written for her by some one else, and\nmerely committed to memory and recited by her, the poem is,\nnevertheless, wonderful as a reproduction of the singular music and\nalliteration of Poe\u2019s style, and as manifesting the same intensity of\nfeeling. Whoever wrote the poem must have been exceedingly familiar with\nPoe, and deeply in sympathy with his spirit. But if Miss Doten is\nhonest, and the poem originated as she said it did, it is unquestionably\nthe most astonishing thing that Spiritualism has produced. It does not\nfollow, necessarily, in that case, that Poe himself made the\npoem,--although we are asked to believe a great many spiritual things on\nless cogent evidence,--but it is, in any view of it that may be taken, a\nvery singular and mysterious production. There is, in the second verse,\nan allusion to a previous poem that purported to come from the spirit of\nPoe, which was published several years since, and attracted much\nattention, but the following poem is of a higher order, and much more\nlike Poe than the other.\u201d--_Springfield Republican._\n\n\n          From the throne of Life Eternal,\n          From the home of love supernal,\n    Where the angel feet make music over all the starry floor--\n          Mortals, I have come to meet you,\n          Come with words of peace to greet you,\n    And to tell you of the glory that is mine forevermore.\n\n          Once before I found a mortal\n          Waiting at the heavenly portal--\n    Waiting but to catch some echo from that ever-opening door;\n          Then I seized his quickened being,\n          And through all his inward seeing,\n    Caused my burning inspiration in a fiery flood to pour!\n\n          Now I come more meekly human,\n          And the wreak lips of a woman\n    Touch with fire from off the altar, not with burnings as of yore;\n          But in holy love descending,\n          With her chastened being blending,\n    I would fill your souls with music from the bright celestial shore.\n\n          As one heart yearns for another,\n          As a child turns to its mother,\n    From the golden gates of glory turn I to the earth once more,\n          Where I drained the cup of sadness,\n          Where my soul was stung to madness,\n    And life\u2019s bitter, burning billows swept my burdened being o\u2019er.\n\n          Here the harpies and the ravens,--\n          Human vampyres, sordid cravens,--\n    Preyed upon my soul and substance till I writhed in anguish sore;\n          Life and I then seemed mismated,\n          For I felt accursed and fated,\n    Like a restless, wrathful spirit, wandering on the Stygian shore.\n\n          Tortured by a nameless yearning,\n          Like a frost-fire, freezing, burning,\n    Did the purple, pulsing life-tide through its fevered channels pour,\n          Till the golden bowl--Life\u2019s token--\n          Into shining shards was broken,\n    And my chained and chafing spirit leaped from out its prison door.\n\n          But while living, striving, dying,\n          Never did my soul cease crying,\n    \u201cYe who guide the Fates and Furies, give, O give me, I implore,\n          From the myriad hosts of nations,\n          From the countless constellations,\n    One pure spirit that can love me--one that I, too, can adore!\u201d\n\n          Through this fervent aspiration\n          Found my fainting soul salvation,\n    For from out its blackened fire-crypts did my quickened spirit soar;\n          And my beautiful ideal--\n          Not too saintly to be real--\n    Burst more brightly on my vision than the loved and lost Lenore.\n\n          \u2019Mid the surging seas she found me,\n          With the billows breaking round me,\n    And my saddened, sinking spirit in her arms of love upbore;\n          Like a lone one, weak and weary,\n          Wandering in the midnight dreary,\n    On her sinless, saintly bosom, brought me to the heavenly shore.\n\n          Like the breath of blossoms blending,\n          Like the prayers of saints ascending,\n    Like the rainbow\u2019s seven-hued glory, blend our souls forevermore;\n          Earthly love and lust enslaved me,\n          But divinest love hath saved me,\n    And I know now, first and only, how to love and to adore.\n\n          O, my mortal friends and brothers!\n          We are each and all another\u2019s,\n    And the soul that gives most freely from its treasure hath the more;\n          Would you lose your life, you find it,\n          And in giving love, you bind it\n    Like an amulet of safety, to your heart forevermore.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROPHECY OF VALA.\n\n[Given under the inspiration of Edgar A. Poe.]\n\nThe Prophecy of Vala is founded on the Scandinavian mythology. Odin, the\ngreat All Father, is the sovereign power of the universe; Thor, a lesser\ngod, of whom it is said, \u201chis mighty hammer smote thunder out of every\nthing.\u201d Baldur was a son of Odin and Frigga. He was slain by H\u00f6rder, his\nblind brother, who was persuaded to the act by Lok\u00e9, an evil spirit,\ncorresponding to the Hebrew or Christian devil. The Valkyrien were the\ngenii of the battle-field. The three Nornen were the Fates who watered\nthe tree Yggdrasill, at whose roots it is said that a dragon was\nconstantly gnawing. The Heimskringla was the circle of the universe.\nVala was a seeress, or prophetess, who was summoned from the dead by\nOdin, to tell of the fate of Baldur; but on her appearance refused to do\nso, and to the astonishment of all, prophesied the death of all the sons\nof Odin at the day of Ragnaroc, which corresponds to the day of\njudgment, with the exception that it was also the day of reconstruction,\nor renewal of the world. The Prophecy of Vala, as given in the old\nIcelandic Edda, has been used with perfect freedom, to present the idea\nthat Good, though apparently overcome of Evil, should ultimately\ntriumph.--_Explanation by Poe._\n\n\n    I have walked with the Fates and the Furies \u2019mid the wrecks of the\n       mighty Past,\n    I have stood in the giant shadows which the ages have backward cast,\n    And I\u2019ve heard the voices of prophets come down in a lengthening chain,\n    Translating the Truth Eternal, and making its meaning plain;\n    Backward still, ever backward, \u2019mid wreck and ruin I trod,\n    Seeking Life\u2019s secret sources, and the primal truths of God.\n\n    \u201cTell me,\u201d I cried, \u201cO Prophet, thou shade of the mighty Past,\n    What of the Truth in the future? Is its horoscope yet cast?\n    Thou didst give it its birth and being, thou didst cradle it in\n       thy breast--\n    Show me its shining orbit, and the place of its final rest!\u201d\n\n    A sound like the restless earthquake! a crash like the \u201ccrack of doom\u201d!\n    And a fiery fulmination streamed in through the frightened gloom.\n    I stood in the halls of Odin, and the great All Father shone\n    Like the centre and sun of Being, \u2019mid the glories of his throne;\n    And Thor, with his mighty hammer, upraised in his giant hand,\n    Stood ready to wake the thunder at his sovereign Lord\u2019s command.\n\n    \u201cHo, Thor!\u201d said the mighty Odin, \u201cour omens are all of ill,\n    For the dragon gnaweth sharply at the roots of Yggdrasill;\n    I hear the wild Valkyrien, as they shriek on the battle-plain,\n    And the moans of the faithful Nornen, as they weep over Baldur slain.\n    A woe to the serpent Lok\u00e9, and to H\u00f6rder\u2019s reckless ruth,\n    For Goodness is slain of Evil, and Falsehood hath conquered Truth!\n    Now call thou on mystic Vala, as she sleeps in the grave of Time,\n    Where the hoary age hath written her name in a frosty rime;\n    She can tell when the sun will darken, when the stars shall cease to burn,\n    When the sleeping dead shall waken, and when Baldur shall return.\u201d\n\n    A sound like the rushing tempest, and the wondrous hammer fell,\n    And the great Heimskringla shuddered, and swayed like a mighty bell.\n    There were mingled murmurs and discords, like the wailing of\n       troubled souls;\n    Like the gnomes at their fiery forges--like the bowlings of\n       restless ghouls.\n    Then out of the fiery covert of the tempest and the storm,\n    Like a vision of troubled slumber, came a woman\u2019s stately form.\n    There fell a hush as at midnight, when the sheeted dead awake,\n    And even the silence shuddered, as her words of power she spake:\n\n    \u201cMighty Odin, I am Vala,\n      I have heard your thunder-call,\n    I have heard the woful wailing\n      Sounding forth from Wingolf\u2019s hall;\n    And I know that beauteous Baldur,\n      Loved of all the gods, is slain--\n    That the evil Lok\u00e9 triumphs,\n      And on H\u00f6rder rests the stain.\n    But my words shall fail to tell you\n      Aught concerning him you mourn,\n    For the leaves that bear the record\n      From the Tree of Life are torn;\n    And while Hecla\u2019s fires shall glow,\n    Or the bubbling Geysers flow,\n    Of his fate no one shall know--\n    Understand you this, or no?\n\n    \u201cI will sing a solemn Saga,\n      I will chant a Runic rhyme,\n    Weave a wild, prophetic Edda,\n      From the scattered threads of time:\n    Know, O Odin,--mighty Odin,--\n      That thy sons shall all be slain,\n    Where the wild Valkyrien gather,\n      On the bloody battle plain;\n    And thy throne itself shall tremble\n      With the stern, resistless shock,\n    Which shall rend the world asunder\n      At the day of Ragnaroc.\n    Other stars the night shall know,\n    From the rock shall waters flow,\n    And from ruin beauty grow.\n    Understand you this, or no?\n\n    \u201cVainly shall the faithful Nornen\n      Water drooping Yggdrasill,\n    For the wrathful, restless dragon\n      At its roots is gnawing still.\n    Lok\u00e9\u2019s evil arts shall triumph,\n      H\u00f6rder\u2019s eyes be dark with night,\n    Till the day of re-creation\n      Brings the buried Truth to light:\n    Then a greater god than Odin,\n      Over all the worlds shall reign,\n    And my Saga\u2019s mystic meaning,\n      As the sunlight shall be plain.\n    Out of evil good shall grow--\n    Doubt me not, for time shall show.\n    Understand you this, or no?\n    Fare you well! I go--I go!\u201d\n\n    There came a voice as of thunder, with a gleam of lurid light,\n    And the mystic Vala vanished like a meteor of the night;\n    Then I saw that the truth of the present is but the truth of the past,\n    But each phase is greater, and grander, and mightier than the last--\n    That the past is ever prophetic of that which is yet to be,\n    And that God reveals his glory by slow and distinct degree;\n    Yet still are the nations weeping o\u2019er the graves of the Truth and Right:\n    Lo! I summon another Vala--let her prophesy to-night.\n    With the amaranth, and the myrtle, and the asphodel on her brow,\n    Still wet with the dew of the kingdom, doth she stand before you now:\n\n        \u201cNot with sound of many thunders,\n        Not with miracles and wonders,\n    Would I herald forth my coming from the peaceful spirit-shore;\n        But in God\u2019s own love descending,\n        With your aspirations blending,\n    I would teach you of the future, that you watch and weep no more.\n\n        \u201cGod is God from the creation;\n        Truth, alone, is man\u2019s salvation:\n    But the God that now you worship soon shall be your God no more;\n        For the soul, in its unfolding,\n        Evermore its thought remoulding,\n    Learns more truly, in its progress, \u2018how to love and to adore!\u2019\n\n        \u201cEvil is of Good, twin brother,\n        Born of God, and of none other:\n    And though Truth seems slain of Error, through the ills that men deplore,\n        Yet, still nearer to perfection,\n        She shall know a resurrection,\n    Passing on from ceaseless glory, unto glory evermore.\n\n        \u201cFrom the truths of former ages,\n        From the world\u2019s close-lettered pages,\n    Man shall learn to meet more bravely all the life that lies before;\n        For the day of retribution\n        Is the final restitution\n    Of the good, the true, the holy, which shall live forevermore!\n        \u2018Understand you this, or no?\n        Fare you well! I go--I go!\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE KINGDOM.\n\n[Given under the inspiration of Poe.]\n\n\u201cAnd I saw no temple therein.\u201d--_Rev._ 21:22.\n\n\n    \u2019Twas the ominous month of October--\n      How the memories rise in my soul!\n      How they swell like a sea in my soul!--\n    When a spirit, sad, silent, and sober,\n      Whose glance was a word of control,\n    Drew me down to the dark Lake Avernus,\n      In the desolate Kingdom of Death--\n    To the mist-covered Lake of Avernus,\n      In the ghoul-haunted Kingdom of Death.\n\n    And there, as I shivered and waited,\n      I talked with the Souls of the Dead--\n      With those whom the living call dead;\n    The lawless, the lone, and the hated,\n      Who broke from their bondage and fled--\n      From madness and misery fled.\n    Each word was a burning eruption\n      That leapt from a crater of flame--\n    A red, lava-tide of corruption,\n      That out of life\u2019s sediment came,\n    From the scoriac natures God gave them,\n      Compounded of glory and shame.\n\n    \u201cAboard!\u201d cries our pilot and leader;\n      Then wildly we rush to embark,\n      We recklessly rush to embark;\n    And forth in our ghostly Ellida[L]\n      We swept in the silence and dark--\n    O God! on that black Lake Avernus,\n      Where vampyres drink even the breath,\n    On that terrible Lake of Avernus,\n      Leading down to the whirlpool of Death!\n\n    It was there the Eumenides[M] found us,\n      In sight of no shelter or shore--\n      No beacon or light from the shore.\n    They lashed up the white waves around us,\n      We sank in the waters\u2019 wild roar;\n    But not to the regions infernal,\n      Through billows of sulphurous flame,\n    But unto the City Eternal,\n      The Home of the Bless\u00e9d, we came.\n\n    To the gate of the Beautiful City,\n      All fainting and weary we pressed,\n      Impatient and hopeful we pressed.\n    \u201cO, Heart of the Holy, take pity,\n      And welcome us home to our rest!\n    Pursued by the Fates and the Furies,\n      In darkness and danger we fled--\n    From the pitiless Fates and the Furies,\n      Through the desolate realms of the Dead.\u201d\n\n    \u201c_Jure Divino_, I here claim admission!\u201d\n      Exclaimed a proud prelate, who rushed to the gate;\n    \u201c_Ave Sanctissima_, hear my petition\n      Holy Saint Peter; O, why should I wait?\n    O, _fons pietatis_, O, glorious flood,\n    My soul is washed clean in the Lamb\u2019s precious blood.\u201d\n\n    Like the song of a bird that yet lingers,\n      When the wide-wandering warbler has flown;\n      Like the wind-harp by Eolus blown,\n    As if touched by the lightest of fingers,\n      The portal wide open was thrown;\n    And we saw--not the holy Saint Peter,\n      Not even an angel of light,\n    But a vision far dearer and sweeter,\n      Not brilliant nor blindingly bright,\n      But marvellous unto the sight!\n\n    In the midst of the mystical splendor,\n      Stood a beautiful, beautiful child--\n      A golden-haired, azure-eyed child.\n    With a look that was touching and tender,\n      She stretched out her white hand and smiled:\n    \u201cAy, welcome, thrice welcome, poor mortals,\n      O, why do ye linger and wait?\n    Come fearlessly in at these portals--\n      No warder keeps watch at the gate!\u201d\n\n    \u201c_Gloria Deo! Te Deum laudamus!_\u201d\n      Exclaimed the proud prelate, \u201cI\u2019m safe into Heaven;\n    Through the blood of the Lamb, and the martyrs who claim us,\n      My soul has been purchased, my sins are forgiven!\n    I tread where the saints and the martyrs have trod--\n    Lead on, thou fair child, to the temple of God!\u201d\n\n    The child stood in silence and wonder,\n      Then bowed down her beautiful head,\n      And even as fragrance is shed\n    From the lily the waves have swept under,\n      She meekly and tenderly said--\n      So simply and truthfully said:\n    \u201cIn vain do ye seek to behold Him;\n      He dwells in no temple apart;\n    The height of the Heavens cannot hold him,\n      And yet he is here in my heart--\n      He is here, and he will not depart.\u201d\n\n    Then out from the mystical splendor,\n      The swift-changing, crystalline light,\n      The rainbow-hued, scintillant light,\n    Gleamed faces more touching and tender\n      Than ever had greeted our sight--\n      Our sin-blinded, death-darkened sight;\n    And they sang: \u201cWelcome home to the Kingdom,\n      Ye earth-born and serpent-beguiled;\n    The Lord is the light of this Kingdom,\n      And His temple the heart of a child--\n      Of a trustful and teachable child,\n    Ye are born to the life of the Kingdom--\n      Receive, and believe, as a child.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE CRADLE OR COFFIN.\n\n[Given under the inspiration of Poe.]\n\n\n      The Cradle or Coffin, the robe or the shroud,\n      Of which shall a mortal most truly be proud?\n    The cradle rocks light as a boat on the billow,\n    The child lies asleep on his soft, downy pillow,\n      And the mother sits near with her love-lighted eyes,--\n    Sits watching her treasure, and dreamily singing,\n    While the cradle keeps time, like a pendulum swinging,\n      And notes every moment of bliss as it flies.\n\n      Lullaby baby--watch o\u2019er his rest!\n      The dear little fledgling asleep in his nest.\n    How blest is that slumber--how calm he reposes,\n    With his sweet, pouting lips, and his cheeks flushed with roses!\n      O, God of the Innocent, would it might last!\n    But know, thou fond mother, beyond thy perceiving,\n    The Parc\u00e6 are near him, and steadily weaving\n      The meshes of Fate which around him they cast!\n\n      Lullaby baby--let him not wake!\n      Soon shall the bubble of infancy break;\n    Life, with its terrors and fears, shall surround him,\n    Evil and Good with strange problems confound him,\n      And, as the charmed bird to the serpent is drawn,\n    The demons of hell, from his proudest position,\n    Shall drag down his soul to the depths of perdition,\n      Till he bitterly curses the day he was born!\n\n      The Cradle or Coffin, the blanket or pall--\n      O, which brings a blessing of peace unto all?\n    How still is the Coffin! No undulant motion;\n    Becalmed like a boat on the breast of the ocean.\n      And there lies the child, with his half-curtained eyes,\n    While his mother stands near him, her love-watch still keeping,\n    And kisses his pale lips with wailing and weeping,\n      Till her anguish is dumb, or can speak but in sighs.\n\n      He needs not a lullaby now for his rest;\n      The fledgling has fluttered, and flown from his nest.\n    He starts not, he breathes not, he knows no awaking,\n    Though sad eyes are weeping and fond hearts are breaking.\n      O, God of all mercy, how strange are thy ways!\n    Yet know, thou fond mother, beyond thy perceiving,\n    The angels who took him are tenderly weaving\n      His vestments of beauty, his garments of praise.\n\n      O, call him not back to earth\u2019s weariness now,\n      For blossoms unfading encircle his brow;\n    From glory to glory forever ascending,\n    His soul with the soul of the Infinite blending,\n      Great luminous truths on his being shall dawn.\n    With no doubts to distract him, or stay his endeavor,\n    He shall bless in his progress, forever and ever,\n      The day that his soul to the Kingdom was born.\n\n      The Cradle or Coffin, the robe or the shroud,\n      Of which shall a mortal most truly be proud?\n      The Cradle or Coffin, the blanket or pall,\n      O, which brings a blessing of peace unto all?\n      The Cradle or Coffin, both places of rest--\n      Tell us, O mortals, which like ye the best?\n\n\n\n\nTHE STREETS OF BALTIMORE.\n\n\u201cEDGAR A. POE.--As the circumstances attendant upon the death of Poe are\nnot generally known, it may be well to present the facts in connection\nwith the following poem. Having occasion to pass through Baltimore a few\ndays before his intended marriage with a lady of family and fortune in\nVirginia, Poe met with some of his old associates, who induced him to\ndrink with them, although, as we are informed, he had entirely abstained\nfor a year. This aroused the appetite which had so long slumbered within\nhim, and in a short time he wandered forth into the street in a state of\ndrunken delirium, and was found next morning literally dying from\nexposure. He was taken to a hospital, and on the 7th of October, 1849,\nat the age of thirty-eight, he closed his troubled life. The tortures\nand terrors of that night of suffering are vividly portrayed in the\nfollowing poem, composed in spirit-life, and given by him through the\nmediumship of Miss Lizzie Doten, at the conclusion of her lecture in\nBaltimore, on Sunday evening, January 11, 1863.\u201d--_Banner of Light._\n\n\n    Woman weak, and woman mortal,\n    Through thy spirit\u2019s open portal,\n      I would read the Runic record\n        Of mine earthly being o\u2019er--\n    I would feel that fire returning,\n    Which within my soul was burning,\n      When my star was quenched in darkness,\n        Set, to rise on earth no more,\n      When I sank beneath life\u2019s burden\n        In the streets of Baltimore!\n\n    O, those memories, sore and saddening!\n    O, that night of anguish maddening!\n      When my lone heart suffered shipwreck\n        On a demon-haunted shore--\n    When the fiends grew wild with laughter,\n    And the silence following after,\n      Was more awful and appalling\n        Than the cannons deadly roar--\n      Than the tramp of mighty armies\n        Through the streets of Baltimore!\n\n    Like a fiery serpent coiling,\n    Like a Maelstrom madly boiling,\n      Did this Phlegethon of fury\n        Sweep my shuddering spirit o\u2019er!\n    Rushing onward, blindly reeling,\n    Tortured by intensest feeling--\n      Like Prometheus, when the vultures\n        Through his quivering vitals tore--\n      Swift I fled from death and darkness,\n        Through the streets of Baltimore!\n\n    No one near to save or love me!\n    No kind face to watch above me!\n      Though I heard the sound of footsteps,\n        Like the waves upon the shore,\n    Beating, beating, beating, beating!\n    Now advancing, now retreating--\n      With a dull and dreamy rhythm--\n        With a long, continuous roar--\n      Heard the sound of human footsteps,\n        In the streets of Baltimore!\n\n    There at length they found me lying,\n    Weak and \u2019wildered, sick and dying,\n      And my shattered wreck of being\n        To a kindly refuge bore!\n    But my woe was past enduring,\n    And my soul cast off its mooring,\n      Crying, as I floated outward,\n        \u201cI am of the earth no more!\n      I have forfeited life\u2019s blessing\n        In the streets of Baltimore!\u201d\n\n    Where wast thou, O Power Eternal!\n    When the fiery fiend, infernal,\n      Beat me with his burning fasces,\n        Till I sank to rise no more?\n    O, was all my life-long error\n    Crowded in that night of terror?\n      Did my sin find expiation,\n        Which to judgment went before,\n      Summoned to a dread tribunal,\n        In the streets of Baltimore?\n\n    Nay, with deep, delirious pleasure,\n    I had drained my life\u2019s full measure,\n      Till the fatal, fiery serpent,\n        Fed upon my being\u2019s core!\n    Then with force and fire volcanic,\n    Summoning a strength Titanic,\n      Did I burst the bonds that bound me--\n        Battered down my being\u2019s door;\n      Fled, and left my shattered dwelling\n        To the dust of Baltimore!\n\n    Gazing back without lamenting,\n    With no sorrowful repenting,\n      I can read my life\u2019s sad story\n        In a light unknown before!\n    For there is no woe so dismal,\n    Not an evil so abysmal,\n      But a rainbow arch of glory\n        Spans the yawning chasm o\u2019er!\n      And across that Bridge of Beauty\n        Did I pass from Baltimore!\n\n    In that grand, Eternal City,\n    Where the angel-hearts take pity\n      On the sin which men forgive not,\n        Or inactively deplore,\n    Earth has lost the power to harm me!\n    Death can never more alarm me,\n      And I drink fresh inspiration\n        From the Source which I adore--\n      Through my Spirit\u2019s apoth\u00e9osis--\n        That new birth in Baltimore!\n\n    Now no longer sadly yearning yearning--\n    Love for love finds sweet returning--\n      And there comes no ghostly raven,\n        Tapping at my chamber door!\n    Calmly, in the golden glory,\n    I can sit and read life\u2019s story,\n      For my soul from out that shadow\n        Hath been lifted evermore--\n      From that deep and dismal shadow,\n        In the streets of Baltimore!\n\n\n\n\n[As the following lecture is, in a certain sense, an introduction to\nPoe\u2019s \u201cFarewell to Earth,\u201d it has been considered advisable to publish\nit in connection with the poem.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE MYSTERIES OF GODLINESS.\n\nA LECTURE DELIVERED BY MISS LIZZIE DOTEN, AT CLINTON HALL, MONDAY, P.\nM., NOV. 2, 1863.\n\n[Phonographically reported by Robert S. Moore.]\n\n\nFor several reasons, we must be as brief and comprehensive as possible\nin our remarks to-night. We do not intend to make any great intellectual\neffort, or to endeavor to astonish you with lofty strains of eloquence.\nWe simply desire to present to you a few facts in connection with the\npoem about to be given, and we do this under the distinctive title of\nour discourse,--THE MYSTERIES OF GODLINESS.\n\nAs Godliness was a mystery in the past, so is it in the present. And why\nis it a mystery? Because men understand so little of the _practice_ of\nGodliness. Socrates was accustomed to say that \u201ca man was always\nsufficiently eloquent in that which he clearly understood;\u201d and thus a\nman will not look upon that as a mystery which is a part of his daily\nlife, and with which he has become familiar through experience. But as\nit was in the days when Jesus lived and taught, or when Paul wrote his\nEpistle to Timothy, so Godliness, to the great mass of minds, remains a\nmystery. When Paul penned those words,--\u201cWithout controversy, great is\nthe mystery of Godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in\nthe spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in\nthe world, and received up into glory,\u201d--he referred particularly to the\nlife and teachings of Jesus. We, however, give to the passage a more\ncomprehensive and extended application. If the \u201cMystery of Godliness\u201d\nwas made manifest in the life of Jesus because of his divinity, then do\nwe say to the men of the present day, \u201cBeloved, now are ye also sons of\nGod.\u201d And if \u201cthe Word was made flesh, and dwelt in the midst of men,\u201d\nin the person of Jesus of Nazareth, so that same Word is incarnated, in\ngreater or less degree, in every human being, be he rich or poor, black\nor white, bond or free. In the same way, also, every one possessing a\nliving soul is a manifestation of the mystery of Godliness. And when a\nman goes into his own nature, when he understands himself, when he reads\nthe mysteries of his own being, when he looks away from his positive and\nearthly necessities up to his Divine possibilities, and sees how vast is\nthe range, how infinite his capabilities, then he begins to understand\nsomething of the mysteries of Godliness. The Church has used this\nphraseology in the past, and knew not what it meant. She had \u201cthe form\nof Godliness,\u201d and yet in word and deed, ay, in very thought, she\n\u201cdenied the power thereof.\u201d Therefore it has been, in all past time,\nwhen there were some true and sincere souls in the Church, who made\nmanifest, both by profession and practice, that in part at least, they\ncomprehended the mystery of Godliness, which is the highest\nspirituality,--not Spiritualism,--and let it flow out into the beauty\nand harmony of perfect lives, the Church looked at them with a doubtful\ncountenance. There was such a thing as being too holy, and the Church\nfelt that such lives were a reproach to her self-righteousness and\nhypocrisy. She was not familiar with the manifestation of true\nGodliness, and consequently looked upon it as something that threatened\nher internal peace, and the success of her stereotyped plan of\nsalvation. Therefore it was, that the voice of condemnation was raised\nagainst Michael De Molinos, Fenelon, Madame Guyon, and the whole host of\nQuietists and Reformers. By dim forecastings of the soul, and heroic\nstruggling with flesh and sense, they had learned something of that holy\nmystery. It was that which could not be translated into human language.\nIt could not be written in books, but it was that which was to be felt\nin the soul, and made manifest in the life. Godliness, true\nspirituality, cannot find expression in words, and so it must of\nnecessity manifest its Divine beauty in the life.\n\nBut what is the idea we intend to convey when we use the term\n\u201cGodliness\u201d? Who is God, from whose name this word is simply a\nderivative? Godliness is the manifestation of his spirit and power in\nthe soul of man, yet it is not God. Who, then, is He! We must look into\nthe lexicon of every human heart to find our reply; for each one\nworships his own Ideal of Deity according to the revelation of Truth\nwhich he receives, and to the capacity of his spirit to comprehend. The\nold philosophers sought for God in all the external world; they also\nwent down into the mysteries of the spirit, as far as philosophy could\nsound its mighty depths, and yet they could not fathom his infinite\nnature. Although form and an external are necessary to man as a\ncompletion of his idea, yet when he reasons deeply concerning Deity, he\ncannot arrive at any satisfactory conclusions concerning his\npersonality; he can only worship him as a principle, as a presence, and\na power. Man, in his insignificance, can only look up to that superior\nIntelligence, which manifests itself throughout Nature, and worship\neither in the silence of the heart or in the inadequate articulations of\nhuman speech. The finite never did as yet compass and comprehend the\nInfinite. And before that majestic question which all the Ages have\nsought in vain to answer, before that mighty Oracle whose essence and\nnature have never been understood, man might as well remain dumb.\n\nBut where, you ask, shall man find his highest manifestation of Deity?\nHow shall he know and understand God, so that he may attain unto the\ntrue mystery of Godliness? The most of God that you can know is through\nyour own souls. Your neighbor may speak unto you of the influences which\nflow in upon him from the great Soul of all; you can only listen, but\ncannot comprehend, unless there is something of the same spirit--of the\nsame Divine life within you. But as you grow in goodness and\nspirituality, you comprehend more clearly the truth which Jesus, the\ngreatest Medium the world ever knew, spoke to the ears of men, when he\nsaid, \u201cGod is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in\nspirit and in truth.\u201d Therefore our definition of Godliness is\nspirituality, the influence of God felt in the soul and made manifest in\nthe life of man. Just in proportion as this principle or power is\nrealized in the hearts of men, they approach nearer unto Deity; they see\nmore of his perfect life; they understand more of his ways; they leave\nspeculations concerning his personality, and go away to those great\ngeneralizations whereby a man\u2019s soul grows comprehensive and universal\nin its sympathies, and beholds the operations of the Infinite mind in\nall things. Thus, as Jesus was a manifestation of that Godliness or\nspirituality, the self-same Divine power--the \u201cDivine in the human\u201d is\nmanifest in every sentient being.\n\nAnd here we approach a mighty truth, in whose majestic presence we feel\ninclined to lay aside our dusty sandals; for the place whereon we stand\nseems holy ground. While studying the mysteries of our own being, we\nfind that necessarily we worship Everlasting Truth, in whatever form it\nmay be presented. We go away from limitations, we go away from sects and\ncreeds, from tottering institutions and the musty theologies of the\npast, and stand face to face with that fresher revelation of Deity in\nthe heart. Then it is that man feels there are primary and fundamental\ntruths lying at the basis of all philosophy and all religion, and only\nas he builds upon these broad foundations can he rear a glorious\nsuperstructure against which all the winds of changing theories, and the\ndescending floods of mere speculative philosophy, will not be able to\nprevail. As man, like one initiated into the mysteries of Masonry,\nenters into this lodge of freedom, he begins to believe in himself. No\nman can have faith in God who has no faith in himself; that is the first\nstep towards the Divine. You take that step in the secret of the soul\nwhen you first acknowledge the \u201cDivine in the human,\u201d and confess its\nsupporting influence.\n\nFor instance, two men may be standing on the borders of a precipice:\nbelow, there is the deep ravine; opposite, the other side of the\nmountain. They look far down and see rough, ragged points of rocks, and\nfar, far below, the floods boiling white with foam. Over this abyss\nthere is but one slight, frail bridge, and that is the trunk of a single\ntree. One man says, \u201cSince we must pass over, I will precede. I know\nthat I can go; I _will_ go.\u201d That man has faith in himself. He plants\nhis feet firmly; he looks upward, and passes safely over. The second\nsays, \u201cI do not believe that I can go; I fear I shall fall.\u201d He totters\non, trembling, until he reaches the middle, and then cries out, \u201cO Lord,\nLord, help me!\u201d So surely as he utters that cry, faithless in his own\npower, that man must fall.\n\nAnd thus it is with human souls. They are standing here, in earthly\nlife, gazing across the great abyss of the Future. It is dark and\nterrible below. They cannot clearly understand what fate awaits them,\nbut they see the strait and narrow way before them. If a man plants his\nfeet firmly, and says, \u201cI can, and I will,\u201d it is the greatest possible\nacknowledgement of his faith in God. That man has stepped upon the\nthreshold of the mysteries of Godliness; those mysteries will be made\nclearer and more apparent to his soul as he advances. But if, with\ncraven soul, he says, \u201cI know not what to do. I will wait for God\u2019s\nprovidences, and let them come as they may; for of myself I can do\nnothing,\u201d--if he trust to the vicarious atonement and an external Deity,\nand does nothing for his own salvation,--if, in making oral prayers to\nthe Lord of the Universe, he forgets to \u201cworship God in spirit,\u201d and\nloses the vitalizing consciousness of the Divine within his own being,\nthat man will assuredly err; he will continually go astray, for\nexternally he has \u201cthe form of Godliness,\u201d but practically and\ninternally he denies \u201cthe power thereof.\u201d\n\nThe world to-day is standing, in a certain sense, in that same position.\nMen are lifting up their hands, and crying, \u201cLord, Lord!\u201d believing that\nthey shall thus enter into the kingdom, while within their own beings\nthere is a broad region of spiritual mysteries unknown and unexplored.\nHere and there are instances where souls, driven by the action of their\nown importunate reason,--ay, we may say, by simple common sense,--have\nturned aside from creeds and theories, and have inquired earnestly of\nNature and of the God within. It is refreshing at times to find such a\nsoul: one that believes in the inspiration of the living Word,\nincarnated in all flesh, and made apparent throughout the universe,--not\na Pantheist, believing in the manifestation of Deity in Nature alone,\nand in nothing higher, but realizing that the creation is the\nperceptible and external revelation of Deity; believing, with the German\nphilosopher Fichte, that \u201cthere is a Divine Idea pervading this visible\nuniverse; which visible universe is indeed but its symbol and sensible\nmanifestation, having in itself no meaning, or even true existence,\nindependent of it. To the mass of men this Divine Idea lies hidden; yet,\nto discern it, to seize it, and live wholly in it, is the condition of\nall genuine virtue, knowledge, freedom, and the end, therefore, of all\nspiritual effort in every age.\u201d He who lives and dwells in this Idea,\nenters into the mysteries of Godliness. All divine things are\nexceedingly simple when they are known. It is because men are looking\ntoo high that they do not receive the living inspirations of the Truth;\nthey turn away from themselves, and neglect to observe the manifestation\nof the spirit within their own being. They look upon their brother man\nor sister woman, and forget to exercise that broad charity which sees\nthe spirit struggling with the flesh, or feebly breasting the wild waves\nof a tempestuous life, simply because it was thus constituted and\nsurrounded. Men commonly judge from their own individual stand-point,\ninstead of going away back to the Divinity of the inner life, and from\nits pure eyes looking into the heart of their erring brother or sister.\nHe who simply criticizes the man, and judges him by the limitations of\nhis own life, errs greatly. But he who looks beyond and behind him, sees\nthat there are truths, and principles, and powers, and loving, earnest\nspirits, who are endeavoring to make manifest their inspiration through\nhim; and although he may be changeable in his nature, although he may be\nerratic and wandering, it is only through the excess of power that\ncannot find an appropriate manifestation through such an organization.\n\nAnd such a one was he of whom we speak to-night,--that erratic genius,\nEDGAR A. POE. The mysteries of Godliness,--not of morality, as the world\nunderstands it,--confounded him. He could see more clearly than most of\nmen. He looked out into the vast arcana of Nature, and his soul trembled\nbefore the majestic revelation. He knew not how to express, in any\nadequate form of speech, those great and mighty thoughts which rose and\nshone, like stars of wondrous beauty, in his soul; he knew not how to\ngive his burning inspirations a manifestation through his life and\nbeing.\n\nEdgar A. Poe was a medium. \u201cA medium!\u201d you say. \u201cHe himself would scorn\nthe name; and we, who knew him, deny it.\u201d But of what was he a medium?\nWe do not confine ourselves to that definition of the term given by\nmodern Spiritualists. He was a medium for the general inspiration which\nsets like a current of living fire through the universe. No special, no\nindividual spirit wrought directly upon him, but he felt the might and\nmajesty of occult forces from the world of causes, and trembled beneath\ntheir influence. He was a medium, not to disembodied spirits, only so\nfar as mind acts upon mind by the great law of unity, and in the same\nway was he psychologically affected by spirits in the body. He had a\npeculiarly sensitive and impressible nature, and in the mysteries of a\nspirituality which he did not seek to comprehend, he was easily wrought\nupon by the minds around him. Not but what he possessed self-will; not,\nindeed, that he lacked that firmness, whereby, when his soul was\naroused, he could repel such influences. But his nature was so finely\nstrung that every harsh word, every unkindly discord, grated and\nthrilled through his entire being, so that oftentimes it would seem as\nthough he would beat down the wall of clay to give his spirit freedom,\nand to escape forever from the inharmonious influences of the\nworld,--from the presence of those by whom he was so little understood.\n\nIt is difficult to comprehend such natures, for they are not common.\nBut, alas for such! They have no choice but to be denizens of this\nworld, and all the rough, sharp angles of rude Humanity seem continually\nto wound and irritate their sensitiveness, torturing them almost to\nmadness. And yet there is a deep, strong under-current to their lives.\nThere is a beautiful spirituality which leads men to perceive that there\nis a power in the universe which balances all these inequalities and\napparent inharmonies of human beings; and so, although they are set at\nvariance with the world in certain portions of their nature, yet they\nare rewarded in others. Edgar A. Poe possessed the power of retiring\nfrom external things into the mysteries of the spirit. The greatest\nauthors and musical composers the world ever knew, were those whose\nfavorite pursuit so completely absorbed them that all external things\nwere excluded, and they forgot, while their inspirations were upon them,\nwhat manner of men they were,--forgot the necessities of the flesh, and\nall the surroundings of their daily lives. Such men could understand our\nmeaning, when we say that Edgar A. Poe lived much in his inner life, and\nthere, as in the experience of the soul-rapt and inspired Boehmen,\nglorious revelations of the sublime and the beautiful were made manifest\nunto him. The common forms of human speech were inadequate for\nexpression; therefore he seized upon the secret harmony of words, and\nstrung them like flashing gems on the golden line of his thought,\nweaving them into wild, strange metaphors, oftentimes so bewildering and\ndazzling, that the common mind could only feel the charm without\ncomprehending the mystery. Like Ezekiel in his vision, he beheld the\nwondrous \u201cliving creatures, and the wheels,\u201d and as they were\nrepresented, so did he describe them; but the mind of the reader must be\nin a similar state of illumination in order to clearly understand his\nmeaning. There were seasons when he seemed to enter into a peaceful\nalliance with earth and all harmonious and beautiful things. Yet when\nhis peculiarly sensitive nature was startled and aroused, he turned back\nto this Valhalla of his soul, and there he found another element of\npeace,--a strange, paradoxical peace, which comes through the herculean\nefforts of the soul to clamber up the rugged heights of destiny,--such\npeace as is given unto souls, when the angel, with a flaming sword,\ndrives them from the Eden places of this world back into the mysteries\nof their being, in order that from their bloody sweat and bitter agony\nthey may wring out great songs of moving inspiration, and reveal to\nmankind generally the wondrous world of ideas and causes which lies\nbeyond the limits of sense and the range of external observation.\n\nAll such are men of Destiny. They are compelled over the ways which they\ntread. The world looks upon them, and cannot understand them; men\nconsider them as anomalies and strange inconsistencies; as abnormal\nmanifestations of the spirit. Yet \u201cfor this cause came they into the\nworld;\u201d and as poets, and artists, and musical composers are born with\nthe undeveloped elements of their genius within them, so particular\nsouls, in close connection with the spiritual world, who are continually\nreceiving direct impressions and revelations from the sphere of causes,\nare born such from their cradle; and thus the mystery of spirituality or\ngodliness, as the world passes on generation after generation, is\nbecoming more and more apparent in the lives and experiences of men.\nWhen we speak of spirituality, do not consider that we mean modern\nSpiritualism, as understood by the world, which has furnished any amount\nof sheep\u2019s clothing to the wolves who desire to prey upon the lambs in\nthe unguarded fold of Humanity. Neither do we mean that inflated\nspirituality, which, in its zeal for reform, and contempt for ceremonies\nand limitations, rushes to extremes, and, deceiving itself, \u201cuses its\nliberty as an occasion to the flesh.\u201d But we do mean that living\nprinciple, which makes itself manifest in high-toned souls, whose\nsublime aspirations exalt the whole life above the common level of\nHumanity. It may come out as a fitful and glimmering light, but it shows\nthat the Divine inspiration is there, and all men, when they perceive\nit, are ready to acknowledge it as genuine. Whatever is truly good,\nglorious, or divine, that which possesses in itself real merit and\ninspiration, cannot fail to find a responsive echo. And thus was it with\nthe writings of Poe. When, from the glowing fire-crypts of his soul, he\nwrought out, with master strokes, his \u201cRaven,\u201d and gave it to the world,\nmen felt that there was the ring of true genius. And, although it was\nthe utterance of a nature at variance with its earthy surroundings, and\ntortured by its own sensibility, yet because of its gloomy grandeur and\neuphonious rhythm, the poem could not fail to be appreciated.\n\nSuch natures cannot live long in the flesh. They are like two-edged\nswords, which wear upon the scabbard. There is ever an unseen hand upon\nthe hilt, and finally, when the word of command is given, the sword is\ndrawn, and becomes a most effective instrument in the hand of\nEverlasting Truth; then the individual nature that has so long battled\nthe stormy elements of mortal life first perceives its advantages, and\nin the triumphant exultation which spirits always feel when freed from\nthe fetters of mortality, it exclaims, \u201cO Death! where is thy sting? O\nGrave! where is thy victory?\u201d That diviner spirituality which was\nobscured by the flesh, which was crushed down by earthly circumstances,\nat length frees itself, and starts up in all its majesty and glory. But\nthe mysterious growth and development of the spirit does not end here.\n\nPerhaps in this connection we may present to you certain points from\nwhich you will feel obliged to dissent. They may seem like vague\ntheories and wild speculations, yet they are truths which you are yet to\nrealize in your eternal experience,--truths which this one of whom we\nspeak will present to you in repetition to-night.\n\nThere is a power in man which is closely connected with the things of\nexternal life, and draws inspiration from nature and the associations of\nhis fellow-men. There is a power, also, in every human being superior to\nthe spirit, and that is the soul, or innermost life--which is a divine\nand indestructible principle. When, therefore, the garment of flesh is\nlaid aside,--when the mortal puts on its immortality,--the spirit goes\nforth precisely as it is. If it has been under the influence of\nungoverned passion; if it has striven, through mad ambition, to attain\nto some cherished ideal, still does it feel that impetus, and its\nearthly longings and aspirations must pass away through a gradual\ntransformation. You may dissent from this, but the change of the earthly\ngarment does not effect a radical change in the spirit. And thus, as the\nspirit of Edgar A. Poe started forth on its celestial journey, all that\nbound him to earth still held a certain degree of influence over him.\n\u201cLife is one eternal progress,\u201d and only by progression and the gradual\ndevelopment of his nobler nature could he outlive that bondage. In many\nrespects he had loved life and the things of earth. In his intercourse\nwith men he could not free himself from \u201cthe sins which did so easily\nbeset him.\u201d Neither could he restrain that sensitiveness and\nirritability of nature which so often destroyed the peace of his outer\nand inner life, and therefore he must necessarily outgrow that in higher\nconditions, and under more favorable influences. As he gradually\nattained to a sublimer consciousness of the beautiful and true, much of\nthe wild and fitful fire peculiar to his genius departed from him, and\nthere came in its stead a majestic flow of inspiration, solemn and grand\nas the music of the spheres. He saw that there were harmonious relations\nawaiting him; and as his soul was rich in sympathy and love, he aspired\nto those conditions, and he could not rest until he had attained unto\nthem. The hinderance to his perfect peace was in his own spirit, and he\nrealized it. It was for him the commencement of a mighty struggle,--\n\n    \u201cWhen the golden bowl,--life\u2019s token,--\n     Into shining shards was broken.\u201d\n\nIt would seem, then, as though conscious of his strength, he stood up\nlike a spiritual giant, exclaiming, \u201cI am free! At last I am free!\u201d\nThere was a complete expansion of his being as he drank in the celestial\nair. He could not clearly understand the mysteries by which he was\nsurrounded, but he knew that there was a latent energy in his soul,\nwhich, being more fully developed, would wrestle with these mighty\nproblems until he made the solution his own. As year after year, marking\ngreat and important changes in human experience, rolled on, men who\nremembered Poe as he was, said, \u201cNow he rests from life\u2019s labor; now he\nsins and sorrows no more.\u201d\n\nBut they did not know upon what a mighty battle-field he stood, neither\ncould they understand through what fires of purification he was passing.\nBut there he stood, contending bravely, not once losing faith in his\nsoul\u2019s possibilities, and pressing earnestly forward to the desired\nconsummation. And in this he was not alone. O, no! There was with him a\nwhole host of moral heroes, who, conscious of their power to win the\nvictory, and quickened by the inspirations which they received from that\nhigher state of being, were striving, by the excelsior movement of the\nsoul, to attain to those glory-encircled heights from whence they could\nlook calmly down upon the plane of their earthly existence.\n\nThus it was that, as they gradually arose higher and higher in the scale\nof being, he and they could perceive that all sin, and sorrow, and evil\nended at length in blessing, and that truths, which were dim and\nindistinct, which seemed aught but truths, came out into clear and\nshining light, and in their heavens were stars of the first magnitude.\nThus, also, as he toiled on he became versed in the mysteries of the\nspirit, not in mere moralities--for true religion, godliness or\nspirituality, is the full, free, and complete development of man\u2019s\nentire being, both in the intellectual and moral. Science and\nliterature, art and religion, have been separated by mankind, because\nthey did not understand the true mystery of Godliness.\n\nBut in that higher life one of the first lessons taught to the soul is,\nthat all things have their uses. Even the low, animal passions, leading\nman into error, into sin, sensuality, and evil, will thereby teach him\nlessons of wisdom; will teach him to avoid the false and the untrue, and\nalso that there were rocks and quicksands upon which his bark had\nalmost foundered, and which in the future he must avoid. Whether it be\nthese lower passions, or the intellectual and moral, still each must\nhave its own appropriate manifestation.\n\nAnd as all these capacities for growth and perception belong not to the\nbody but to the spirit, so the spirit, sweeping away into the great\nEternity, bears up all these powers of its wondrous mechanism with it,\nand the vision of Ezekiel is realized; for \u201cthe living creature being\nlifted up, the wheels are lifted up also.\u201d\n\nEach organ of the brain has its own magnetic circle, touching the one\nupon another like the mechanism of a watch, and all governed by the\nmain-spring, which is the internal consciousness of man, the central\npower of his being. This order in the change from the mortal to the\nimmortal is not lost, but finds a more harmonious surrounding. Thus,\nwhen the spirit has ascended, with its increased power, with its\nsuperior opportunities for observation and investigation of all the\ntruths of the universe, it learns this most important truth,--that not\nin _one_ direction, but in _all_, the spirit shall find its most free\nand perfect development.\n\nThus having become familiar with the conditions of the higher life, the\none of whom we speak realized that it was not in the poetic element of\nhis being alone that he was to find inspiration, not in smooth flowing\nnumbers or cunning arrangements of human speech, but in the grand\nharmony of the living whole--the perfect accord of his entire being. It\nwas necessary, in passing forth from the flesh, that he should learn\nthis simple lesson. He has endeavored by all the powers of his nature to\nmake its application; and he has succeeded. This night he gives his\n\u201cFarewell to Earth.\u201d Not that he is to be divided forever in his\ninterest from Humanity, but, no longer incited by restlessness or\nambition, to express in rhythmic numbers the fiery thought within, no\nlonger drawn by the sordid interests of this earthly life, he can gaze\ndown upon this lower world and influence the minds of men, and still be\nabove them. He can still minister, as an Everlasting Truth and living\npower, to the needs of Humanity; but as Poe, the individual, he is\nwilling to be forgotten. His personality, as far as human recognition is\nconcerned, can end here. He cares not that \u201cthis poor, paltry _me_\nshould be spun out into Infinity.\u201d He says: \u201cLet my soul speak, which\nis the Divine Power. I have realized in myself the mysteries of\nGodliness, and know now that I too am Divine. I have merged and lost my\nwill in the Great Will of the universe. I know now what heaven is; it is\nbeauty, perfection, harmony. I would live forever in that celestial air,\nand draw in the vitalizing influences of truth. I do not desire to go\ndown to the lowly homes of earth, nor to mingle with men in their\ncontentions and selfish interests. I know that there is a Power guarding\nand guiding all things, and I can trust those whom I have loved, or\nthose for whom I have cared, in that Almighty Hand. Whatever mysterious\nmanifestation of wisdom on the part of Divine Providence comes to\nHumanity, I can say now, \u2018It is well! Let the will of that Power be\ndone!\u2019 I have then no work to perform for you. I have only to carry with\nme through the vast Eternity an open nature, that I may receive truths,\nand, in passing onward, transmit them to those who are to follow after\nme.\u201d\n\nThus it is with all great and earnest souls. \u201cThe mystery of Godliness,\u201d\nor true spirituality, as an impelling and inspiring power, is behind\nthem, making itself manifest through their being. It also stands before\nthem, beckoning them on the way. It may be they have natures of steel\nand fire, and that a thought electric strikes upon the heart, and sits,\na mania, on the brain. But still they feel that power impelling and\npersuading, and finally when they perceive that the grand current of\nhuman events is tending towards the great ocean of Infinite Truth, they\nare willing to let their own peculiarities and characteristic tendencies\nalso flow on in the great stream, and so harmony is at length\nestablished, not only with themselves but all.\n\nThe lesson of Poe\u2019s life, in itself, was worth much to Humanity. In\ncoming time, others besides ourselves will dissect and analyze his\npeculiar nature, and present it, even as we have, to men, as an instance\nof that Spirit which was \u201cmade manifest in the flesh, which was seen of\nangels, was preached by inspired lips to Humanity, believed on in the\nworld, and received up into glory.\u201d Great, indeed, is the mystery of\nGodliness! great in the light of the human lives that come and go upon\nthe broad arena of earthly existence. Great, also, is that mystery as\nmade manifest in those spirits who go forth from the flesh, and feeling\nthe Divine inspiration stirring within them, seek for life,--Eternal\nLife,--in order that they may grow and expand to the fulness of their\nspiritual being, having within themselves a quenchless thirst for the\nharmonious and the beautiful. They are true to the great law of spirit,\nfor whether in Time or Eternity, it may still be said that,--\n\n    \u201cWithin the heart of man there is a constant yearning\n      For something higher, holier, unattained,--\n    Upward and onward, from the present turning,\n      Yet resting never when a point is gained.\n    Some unseen spirit evermore the soul is urging\n      Through childish weakness and ambitious youth;\n    And day by day all souls are still converging\n      Nearer and nearer to the Central Source of Truth.\n    Youth cuts a foothold in the Rock of Ages;\n      The hope of Fame and Glory lures him on his way,\n    And, pondering o\u2019er the works of ancient sages,\n      He catches glimpses of a brighter day.\n    Alas! but toilsome is the way, and dreary,\n      To him who has no high and holy aim,\n    And, pausing on Life\u2019s threshold, sad and weary,\n      He casts away the laurel wreath of Fame.\u201d[N]\n\nThus was it with Poe. Not clearly discerning the purposes of life, he\ndid not bend his efforts to one high and holy aim. His nature was\nwandering and erratic. This is also _his_ present view of his earthly\nlife. \u201cHe has cast away his laurel wreath of fame,\u201d and now upon his\nbrow, burning brightly with the glories of the celestial sphere, is an\nolive wreath of peace. He stands now as a majestic soul, self-poised and\nharmonious. Yet he has not lost aught of the brilliancy and fire of his\ngenius.\n\nEdgar A. Poe was mighty in the flesh; and in the spirit he is mightier\nfar. His manifestations will yet come to mankind, but not as from the\nindividual. They will speak to your souls; they will breathe in words of\nfire from the lips of Humanity, as inspirations from the Higher Life,\nrather than as the utterances of him who was once known among men as\nEDGAR A. POE.\n\n    \u201cO, ever thus have Earth\u2019s most noble-hearted\n      Gone calmly upward to their place above!\n    And when their footsteps from the earth departed,\n      Have left their works of genius or of love.\n    For Aspiration is the moral lever, raising\n      The earnest spirit to its destined height;\n    But Inspiration only comes from gazing\n      Upon the perfect Source of Life and Light!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nFAREWELL TO EARTH.\n\n[The following poem purports to be Poe\u2019s final farewell to Earth. It was\ngiven in the city of New York, Monday evening, Nov. 2, 1863.]\n\n\nI.\n\n          Farewell! Farewell!\n          Like the music of a bell\n          Floating downward to the dell--\n            Downward from some Alpine height,\n            While the sunset-embers bright,\n            Fade upon the hearth of night;\n          So my spirit, voiceless--breathless,--\n          Indestructible and deathless,\n    From the heights of Life Elysian gives to Earth my parting song;\n          Downward through the star-lit spaces,\n          Unto Earth\u2019s most lowly places,\n    Like the sun-born strains of Memnon, let the music float along,\n    With a wild and wayward rhythm, with a movement deep and strong.\n    \u201cCome up higher!\u201d cry the angels.--This must be my parting song.\n\n          Earth! O Earth! thou art my Mother.\n          Mortal man! thou art my Brother.\n    We have shared a mutual sorrow, we have known a common birth;\n          Yet with all my soul\u2019s endeavor,\n          I will sunder, and forever,\n    Every tie of human passion that can bind my soul to Earth--\n    Every slavish tie that binds me to the things of little worth.\n    \u201cCome up higher!\u201d cry the angels: \u201ccome! and bid farewell to Earth.\u201d\n\n    I would bear a love Platonic to the souls in earthly life;\n    I would give a sign Masonic to the heroes in the strife;\n    I have been their fellow-craftsman, bound apprentice to that Art,\n    Whereby Life, that cunning draughtsman, builds his temple in the heart.\n    But with Earth no longer mated, I have passed the First Degree;\n    I have been initiated to the second mystery.\n    O, its high and holy meaning not one soul shall fail to see!\n    Now, with loftiest aspirations, onward through the worlds I march,\n    Through the countless constellations, upward to the Royal Arch.\n    \u201cCome up higher!\u201d cry the angels: \u201ccome up to the Royal Arch.\u201d\n\n\nII.\n\n          Farewell! Farewell!\n          Like the tolling of a bell,\n          Sounding forth some funeral knell,--\n            Tolling with a sad refrain,\n            Not for those who rest from pain,\n            But for those who still remain;\n          So sweet pathos would I borrow\n          From the loving lips of Sorrow,\n    Weaving in a plaintive minor with the cadence of my song,\n          For the souls that lonely languish,\n          For the hearts that break with anguish,\n    For the weak ones and the tempted, who must sin and suffer long;\n    For the hosts of living martyrs, groaning \u2019neath some ancient wrong;\n    For the cowards and the cravens, who in guilt alone are strong.\n          But from all Earth\u2019s woe and sadness,\n          All its folly and its madness,\n    I would never strive to save you, or avert the evil blow;\n          Even if I would, I could not,\n          Even if I could, I would not\n    Turn the course of Time\u2019s great river, in its grand, majestic flow;\n    Grapple with those mighty causes whose results I may not know:\n    All Life\u2019s sorrows end in blessing, as the future yet shall show.\n\n    From Life\u2019s overflowing beaker I have drained the bitter draught,\n    Changing to a maddening ichor in my being as I quaffed.\n    I have felt the hot blood rushing o\u2019er its red and rameous path,\n    Like the molten lava, gushing in its wild, volcanic wrath;\n    Like a bubbling, boiling Geyser, in the regions of the pole;\n    Like a Scylla or Charybdis, threatening to ingulf my soul.\n    O, for all such fire-wrought natures let my rhythmic numbers toll!\n    Vulnerable, like Achilles, only in one fatal part,\n    I was wounded, by Life\u2019s arrows, in the head, but not the heart.\n    \u201cCome up higher!\u201d cried the angels;--and I hastened to depart.\n\n\nIII.\n\n          Farewell! farewell!\n          Like a merry marriage-bell,\n          Pealing with a tuneful swell,\n            Telling, in a joyful strain,\n            With a whispered, sweet refrain,\n            Of the hearts no longer twain;\n          So no longer cursed and fated,\n          Fondly loved and truly mated,\n    I can pour my inspirations, free as Orpheus, through my strain.\n          Gifted with a sense of seeing\n          Far beyond my earthly being,\n    I can feel I have not suffered, loved, and hoped, and feared in vain;\n    Every earthly sin and sorrow I can only count as gain:\n    I can chant a grand \u201cTe Deum\u201d o\u2019er the record of my pain.\n\n          Ye who grope in darkness blindly,\n          Ye who seek a refuge kindly,\n    Ye upon whose hearts the ravens--ghostly ravens--perch and prey,\n          Listen! for the bells are ringing,\n          Tuneful as the angels singing,\n    Ringing in the glorious morning of your spirit\u2019s marriage-day,\n    When the soul, no longer fettered to the feeble form of clay,\n    To a high, harmonious union, soars, elate with hope away.\n    Where the iris arch of Beauty bridges o\u2019er celestial skies,\n    Where the golden line of Duty, like a living pathway lies,\n    Where the gonfalons of Glory float upon the fragrant air,\n    Ye who read Life\u2019s lengthening story, find a Royal Chapter there.\n    Ye shall see how men and nations o\u2019er the ways of life advance;\n    Ye shall watch the constellations in their mazy, mystic dance;\n    And the Central Sun shall greet you--greet you with a golden glance.\n    O, for souls in Life Eternal let the bells in gladness ring!\n    Bind the wreath of orange blossoms, and the wedding garment bring.\n    \u201cCome up higher!\u201d cry the angels.--Let the bells in gladness ring.\n\n\nIV.\n\n          Farewell! Farewell!\n          Like the chiming of the bells,\n          Which a tale of triumph tells;\n            As the news in tuneful notes,\n            Leaping from the brazen throats,\n            On the startled ether floats;--\n          So in freedom, great and glorious,\n          Over flesh and sense victorious,\n    Does the Spirit leap the barrier which across its pathway lies!\n          Greater far than royal C\u00e6sar,\n          Fearless as the northern \u00c6sir,\n    Drawn by Love\u2019s celestial magnet, winged with faith and hope it flies,\n    Upward o\u2019er the starry pathway, leading onward through the skies,\n    To the land of Light and Beauty, where no bud of promise dies.\n\n          There, through all the vast Empyrean,\n          Wafted, as on gales Hesperian,\n    Comes the stirring cry of \u201cProgress\u201d! telling of the yet to be.\n          Tuneful as a seraph\u2019s lyre,\n          \u201cCome up higher! Come up higher!\u201d\n    Cry the hosts of holy angels; \u201clearn the heavenly Masonry:\n    Life is one eternal progress: enter, then, the Third Degree;--\n    Ye who long for light and wisdom seek the Inner Mystery!\n\n    Thus, O Sons of Earth, I leave you!--leave you for that higher light;\n    And my charge is now, Receive you all my parting words aright:\n    Human passion, mad ambition, bound me to this lower Earth,\n    Even in my changed condition--even in my higher birth.\n    But, by earnest, firm endeavor, I have gained a height sublime;\n    And I ne\u2019er again--no, never!--shall be _bound_ to Space or Time;\n    I have conquered! and forever! Let the bells in triumph chime!\n    \u201cCome up higher!\u201d cry the angels: \u201ccome up to the Royal Arch!\n    Come and join the Past Grand Masters, in the Soul\u2019s progressive march,\n    O, thou neophyte of Wisdom! Come up to the Royal Arch!\u201d\n\n    Sons of Earth! where\u2019er ye dwell,\n    Break Temptation\u2019s magic spell!\n    Truth is Heaven, and Falsehood, Hell!\n    Lawless Lust a demon fell!\n    Sons of Earth! where\u2019er ye dwell,--\n    In this Heaven, or in this Hell,--\n    When ye hear the solemn swell\n    Of Creation\u2019s mighty bell\n    Sounding forth Time\u2019s funeral knell,\n    Ye shall meet me where I dwell;--\n    Until then--FAREWELL! FAREWELL!\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[A] Principal parts of the Latin verb _amo_--I love.\n\n[B] Cheerful.\n\n[C] Trembling.\n\n[D] Great.\n\n[E] Gloomy.\n\n[F] Amend.\n\n[G] Astray.\n\n[H] Stop.\n\n[I] True.\n\n[J] Fellow.\n\n[K] Pay attention.\n\n[L] The dragon-ship of the Norse mythology.\n\n[M] The Fates and Furies.\n\n[N] These lines, with those at the close of the lecture, are quoted\nfrom one of my written poems.","title":"Poems from the Inner Life","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":26724}