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 THE 
 LYRIC 
 OF 
 LIFE 
 
 T 1 TTT* 1 4 PTTVnmT TV V"\TTOOT? 
 

c^Jp jr~, s&a^*-^*^^^. adv^c^x*-^ 
 
THE 
 
 LYRIC OF LIFE 
 
 UNFOLDING 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF IMMORTALITY IN THE SEEN 
 AND UNSEEN FORCES OF NATURE 
 
 NEW THOUGHT IN PLANETARY MOTION 
 
 AND 
 
 THE WORLD LIFE OF SUNS 
 
 BY LAURA A. SUNDERLIN NOURSE 
 Author of Panellings from Immortality 
 
 Reason was given that its light 
 Might radiate surrounding night 
 
 AUTHOR'S EDITION 
 
 BUFFALO 
 
 CHARLES WELLS MOULTON 
 1892 
 
 te\l 
 

 Copyright, 1892, 
 By LAURA A. SUNDERLIN NOURSE. 
 
 Prjntep 5y C, W. Moulton, Buffalo, N, Y, 
 
DEDICATED TO THE WIDE WIDE WORLD. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 When life was first made explainable to me, why a personal body, 
 my instructors of thought claimed that forces were individualized 
 with atoms similar to physical aggregations of mattar. 
 
 That all forces, whether electricity, oxygen, magnetism, or 
 whatever force finding expression in Nature, those forces were 
 composed of atoms of an invisible nature. And to individualize a 
 physical form, an atom of invisible nature always came in contact 
 with matter, and, held by its inertia, by self expansion, grew 
 larger in form and materialized atoms of matter into forms. 
 
 They also told me that the planets' revolution of life was effective 
 by its internal heat, and that scientists had overlooked the simple 
 force of motion that caused the revolution of planets on their axis 
 by the heat engendered in bodies shaped as worlds, having this 
 peculiarity of their own involuntary motion. 
 
 These truths embodied in this work cume to me after much 
 thought and mental questionings, in the year 1879, solving what life 
 was in all its varied forms of personality. 
 
 This theory being new, it was difficult to gain admittance suffi- 
 cient to explain in newspaper articles published since at various 
 times and seasons, therefore, in 188 1, I published a leaflet embody- 
 ing this theory, that it might be productive of thought on a new 
 line of reasoning-life embodied always in the atom prior to physical 
 existence. In the same year I also published an article in the 
 "Boston Investigator," carrying out the same line of thought, in 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 reply to an article upon the "Seen and Unseen " in Nature ', taking 
 the position in demo?istratiou of the "unseen." 
 
 But as all new theories are slow to action^ the thought conceived 
 in my mind to put them into book form , for which the " Lyric of 
 Life " has been written, thinking in this way condensed to be better 
 than in lengthy articles of MSS. preserved that had not yet found 
 their way to press. Since much bearing upon the same line of 
 thought is now advocated by the various writers of to-day y I hope to 
 be better understood by the world of thought and aid the work of 
 Proving the immortality of the soul upon principles of science. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 My mind conceived this Lyric of our life 
 
 Long years ago, when thought, in constant strife, 
 
 Was questioning to unfold a proof to me 
 
 Reasonable — of all immortality 
 
 Through Nature's labyrinths of endless shade; 
 
 Reveal — what through my poem I have made 
 
 To feebly show the light — revealed to mind; 
 
 And let some other one more thoughtful, find 
 
 The links expressive for our use, 
 
 That I have undiscovered, to produce. — 
 
 The origin and growth of every human mind, 
 
 And endless chain of life of every kind; 
 
 That are immortal — because all life must be 
 
 An atom life — from that of Deity, 
 
 That fills the universe with life and mind, 
 
 Expressed in atom lives of every kind. 
 
 Primevally combined in energy and forces; 
 
 That throughout the Universal Whole are life resources; 
 
 One grand vast mechanism of endless power; 
 
 Whose unity of presence seems like our 
 
 Body, ever present with a soul, 
 
 That universal acts with mind control; 
 
 The seat of mind its central power and source, 
 
 And thus we see the Universe of central force. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 All within it, moving 'round some Grand Stupenduous Whole, 
 
 Some unseen center filled with life and soul; 
 
 Some energy of ever central call. 
 
 Attraction in its love through all in all; 
 
 A unit power of mind through all within, — 
 
 Father and Mother Life— a Dual One; 
 
 And for a better name Him was begun: 
 
 And like our body it is atom filled, 
 
 And each inherently intelligence instilled; 
 
 Mind atoms that inherent from the source, 
 
 Has love's attraction, as their central force. 
 
 To individualize a larger mind would be, 
 
 Growing conscious individuality; 
 
 And has that love within from the Divine, 
 
 A spark of it to elevate the mind, 
 
 And bear it upward in the ever ceaseless range 
 
 Of life and motion through progressive change, 
 
 Of beauty harmony and all fullness find, 
 
 In perfect living with harmonious mind. 
 
 Can there be ending, who could ending solve ? 
 
 When universal motion doth revolve, 
 
 And progress bears us upward as a flower, 
 
 Unfolding leaf by leaf reveals to our 
 
 Eternal blossoming of the mind — disclose 
 
 The constant fullness of the perfect rose; 
 
 So that which always is and never dies, 
 
 Must higher circles in progression rise; 
 
 And distance in its length no thought can span, 
 
 Or can it be conceived by life in man. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 How Evil is Ungrowth 6 
 
 Hidden Forces 7 
 
 Attraction Unchangeable in Nature 8 
 
 Hypnotism Demonstrates the Invisibility of Mind 9 
 
 The Use of a Material Body 12 
 
 Seen by Comprehension 15 
 
 Is Attraction Atomic Because it Separates 18 
 
 Forces Associated in the Sun-Ray 19 
 
 Mind Natural to Motion 20 
 
 Dual Life 21 
 
 The Assertion of Sex Forms 23 
 
 Origin of the Mental Atom 24 
 
 The Oneness of Mind 27 
 
 What is Sleep 29 
 
 Mind Natural to Motion 29 
 
 The All-Source 32 
 
 Reincarnation 33 
 
 Physiognomy Reads Aright 37 
 
 Progression of Matter 38 
 
 Usefulness of Material 42 
 
 Materialism 42 
 
 The Evidence that Atoms Exist 44 
 
 Mind Atoms 44 
 
 Progress 48 
 
xil CONTENTS. 
 
 Things of Space 49 
 
 Space is Everywhere Alike 50 
 
 The Air 51 
 
 Thought Improvement 53 
 
 More of the Air 56 
 
 The First Development of Life on Planets 59 
 
 Comprehension of Time and Distance 65 
 
 Worlds. Their Cause of Orbit Motion 68 
 
 Elliptical Orbits 69 
 
 Formation of World Life 70 
 
 Orbit Motion Gathers Electricity 72 
 
 Infant Suns 74 
 
 Their Law of Motion 77 
 
 Conditions for Life on the Earth's Surface 82 
 
 Atmosphere Produces Heat 83 
 
 Heat and Light on All Worlds 84 
 
 More About Orbits and Worlds 85 
 
 Atmospheric Law 86 
 
 Why the Earth is Flattened at the Poles 88 
 
 Why the Moon is Not an Old Planet 88 
 
 World Motion Gathers Electricity 89 
 
 Progression of Life Origin 95 
 
 Progression of Atoms 98 
 
 Usefulness of the Material Body 101 
 
 Primitive Movement of Life 103 
 
 Space and Air 104 
 
 Materialism 105 
 
 The Universal Body 107 
 
 Compensation 109 
 
CONTENTS. X111 
 
 Circling Motion no 
 
 Undivided Mind as a Unit in 
 
 Sensation of Atoms 112 
 
 The Philosophy of Sleep 115 
 
 Romance of an Atom 117 
 
 The Universe 128 
 
 Higher Life . • 133 
 
 Development 136 
 
 Selfishness 139 
 
 Why the Female is Physically Weaker 140 
 
 Harmony 142 
 
 Invisible Distance 143 
 
 Duality of One 145 
 
 Anology of Substances 152 
 
 Is Nature Cruel? No 157 
 
 The Holy Spirit 158 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 LAURA A. SUNDERLIN NQURSE, 
 

THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 IN the archives of all Nature, 
 The hidden life of every creature, 
 Existed in the " Great All Source," 
 As atoms of its central force; 
 And so a force each life expressed, 
 As it individually progressed. 
 
 14 Down in Nature's hiding places 
 Atoms leap with sudden graces; 
 Now released from rock and mud, 
 Up they troup to lily's bud; 
 And from the upper brightness 
 It draws its own pure whiteness, 
 And comes to be 
 
 A symbol of the things we cannot see. 
 Thus the hidden soul of things" 
 Unseen, a revelation brings; 
 Thus the law to all the living, 
 This same growth of life is giving. 
 Just an Atom in its start, 
 Pulses with a central heart; 
 Expanding as it larger grew, 
 In its identity of you. 
 

 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 As it burst from foldings where 
 
 It breathed in something from the air; 
 
 And light received into the mind, 
 
 Responsive thought burst forth to shine; 
 
 Gaining each while added power, 
 
 As from a bud springs forth the flower. 
 
 Thus from atoms filling spaces, 
 
 Life develops different graces, 
 
 In the grand stupendous whole, 
 
 Swerved by Infinite control. 
 
 If a mental atom force, 
 
 Parts of God are we of course; 
 
 Atoms of His Infinite Mind, 
 
 Every life of every kind 
 
 That doth a unit life express, 
 
 Energy and thoughtfulness ; 
 
 Atoms all within His being, 
 
 Which compose the " Great All-Seeing " ; 
 
 Atoms are personal we know 
 
 And would be personal to grow ; 
 
 They in Nature always are, 
 
 Filling spaces, — or a star 
 
 May combine them in its force, 
 
 But released again, the Source, 
 
 Holds them in its body still, — 
 
 The Universe with atoms filled, 
 
 And individual forms would grow 
 
 From their central force we know ; 
 
 Atoms all within His being 
 
 Which compose the " Great All-Seeing." 
 
Tkfc LYRIC Of Llfrft; 
 
 As a body moves each part 
 
 Of the muscles, nerves and heart ; 
 
 Some more sensitive to heart motion ; 
 
 Respond to mind and God devotion ; 
 
 Feel the impulses and thrills, 
 
 Which God's love throughout all fills ; 
 
 For of atoms may be those, 
 
 That more sensitive parts compose, 
 
 In God's body which we build, 
 
 With created atoms filled. 
 
 Then to blame, O, who would be, 
 
 If a God they could not see ! 
 
 Yet through varied circulation, 
 
 They will yet reach in creation, 
 
 Parts of God's stupendous form, 
 
 Where to new thought they are born ; 
 
 Then more active they would be 
 
 With all in Immensity, 
 
 Just as atoms forming nerves, 
 
 With the mind more sensitive serves ; 
 
 Atoms forming bone, more dull 
 
 To sensations of the whole, 
 
 And if parts of God are we, 
 
 In His likeness we may be. 
 
 First we see a mental force ; 
 An atom mind from mental source, 
 But growing larger comes to be 
 Conscious individuality. 
 Atoms centralized are things 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Which a force together brings ; 
 
 Atoms all substances conceal, 
 
 This microscopes reveal ; 
 
 An atom is a unit power, 
 
 If individual grows, — each hour 
 
 More added power its growth expresses, 
 
 And what inherent it possesses, 
 
 Is manifested, as the bloom 
 
 In the plant expresses soon ; 
 
 So life breathing motion gains, 
 
 As unfoldment on explains. 
 
 If we see atoms draw together 
 
 By a force upon them, whether 
 
 That force is unseen or not, 
 
 That unseen a body's got, 
 
 If it shapes those things in one, 
 
 And a person does become. 
 
 If this force that doth combine, 
 
 Leaves it which we call the mind, 
 
 Leaves the body it has builded, 
 
 For a brighter life more gilded ; 
 
 Atoms then dissolve that made 
 
 Bodies that in substance stayed. 
 
 So we see the mind in force, 
 
 In a body first, of course ; 
 
 And it clothed itself and motion, 
 
 From the atoms in commotion, 
 
 That it could unto it draw, 
 
 By the force of love — it saw, 
 
 Were conditions to unfold, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 As the earth in darkness holds 
 Just a little while the seed, 
 Till it bursts its shell and speeds 
 11 Upward into higher brightness, 
 As the lily gains its whiteness/' 
 From the air, the dew and sun, 
 After it from darkness sprung, 
 With a body to adorn, 
 That unfolds its life and form, 
 Shape of what that life may be, 
 Whose motion we can only see, 
 Through the body up to build 
 Atoms, all of which is filled 
 With material atoms, drawn 
 By its love-revealing form. 
 
 Atom lives fill all the spaces, 
 
 All have different forms and places ; 
 
 All eternal still to grow 
 
 From their self start here below, 
 
 As an individual thing, 
 
 And the inward outward bring. 
 
 All and every kind immortal, 
 
 To build up each part and portal ; 
 
 Where that each may enter in, 
 
 Is unknown to all but Him ; 
 
 Of whose body we compose, 
 
 Of whose presence all yet know 
 
 As through fields of time progressed, 
 
 May the present each divest ; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Where we stand to-day another 
 
 May be standing yet — a brother, 
 
 And where others may have stood, 
 
 We may stand and be more good, 
 
 May reach heights of thought sublime, 
 
 That with dazzling radiance shine, 
 
 And unfold a blossom rare, 
 
 From those fields of upper air, 
 
 That will rival in its whiteness 
 
 More than all things known of brightness ; 
 
 Sparkling gems of thought perfume, 
 
 Sweeter than all known-of bloom, 
 
 When we rise from earth and clay 
 
 In the upper air of day ; 
 
 Daylight we have never known, 
 
 Only as we call our own, 
 
 Backward from the land of bliss 
 
 And comparing theirs with this ; 
 
 For no language we have may 
 
 Express that of theirs, they say — 
 
 Nature's land of bloom and flowers, 
 
 Just above this land of ours. 
 
 HOW EVIL IS UNGROWTH. 
 
 IF you say that all is God, 
 Every life that ever trod ; 
 God make evil then, I hear 
 Some one asking, it is queer ! 
 Just compare the human mind 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 To an instrument whose kind 
 
 Of notes produce harmonious sound, 
 
 But if vacant notes are found, 
 
 On the keyboard, you will hear 
 
 Discord ; so evil's appear 
 
 In our actions till each note 
 
 Of the mind is full by rote ; 
 
 Grown to fullness and enwrought 
 
 To produce harmonious thought. 
 
 Cramped, that mind may have begun, 
 
 By conditions from which it sprung. 
 
 As the green fruit on the tree, 
 
 By simply living, yet will be 
 
 Sweetest fruit, and may combine 
 
 All the flavor of its kind ; 
 
 So with all life yet be growing 
 
 Until no evil we are knowing. 
 
 By development we find 
 
 All the beauty of the mind. 
 
 HIDDEN FORCES. 
 
 ATTRACTION is all present in the air ; 
 It attracts together everywhere 
 A fluid, in a body round — 
 A rain drop or a bubble found 
 To be a miniature of worlds ; 
 Or lead made so if it unfurls 
 In melted particles through space. 
 This something filling every place, 
 

 8 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 ttracts them round, as you will see, 
 Attraction everywhere must be ; 
 In everything we breathe or know, 
 This element that does not show, 
 Must be all present everywhere, 
 A substance filling all the air ; 
 And everywhere through boundless space ; 
 To hold the planets in their place, 
 And electricity must combine 
 With it and others we can find, 
 Just as invisible in space, 
 Which science finds in every place. 
 For in the contents of your room 
 It generates and would assume 
 Its presence, as well as anywhere 
 In distant space or in the air ; 
 Attraction tends to organize 
 Its movements cannot this disguise. 
 
 ATTRACTION UNCHANGEABLE IN NATURE. 
 
 ATTRACTION goes through intense cold 
 To reach the earth from pole to pole ; 
 From sun to earth, the space between, 
 Would destroy all substance — seen 
 Like a material, but not so 
 With attraction in its flow, 
 Its identity remains. 
 
 Through heat and cold, 'tis just the same. 
 Electricity is not found 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Through all temperatures around 
 The world, to change its identity ; 
 The same results we always see ; 
 If it should change that could not be ; 
 Material things would be unlike, 
 And variable would disunite ; 
 If cold and heat would meet their way, 
 The law of change they would obey, 
 And life, we find its nature, too, 
 Alike in all of nature through, 
 Invariable, — it will produce 
 Thoughts, as results in every use 
 That its activity is seen ; 
 Its breathing motion is — we mean 
 Expressed in the results of thought, 
 When action with the mind is wrought 
 With what the air contains, — you see 
 The chemistry of thought will be. 
 
 HYPNOTISM DEMONSTRATES THE INVISI- 
 BILITY OF MIND. 
 
 MIND is a something you must know, 
 As it, invisible, will go 
 Across the room, — it is not seen, 
 And your subject moved has been 
 With your thought — and you will do 
 That thought that went from him to you ; 
 You were blind and did not see ; 
 So not material the thought could be, 
 

 IO THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 For it passed through your head to you, 
 
 To reach your mind and make you do 
 
 Just as your will would do for fact, 
 
 If it upon yourself did act ; 
 
 If it went through his material there 
 
 And on to you, through space and air, 
 
 When in silence sent to you 
 
 His thought that you received to do. 
 
 Invisible you see mind force ; 
 
 And is a unit power, of course ; 
 
 If it is natural so — as ever 
 
 Will it not be the same forever ? 
 
 It is a force like all ethereal, 
 
 Unchanging through conditions of the material. 
 
 And is it not this power of mind 
 
 That spirit friends with us entwine 
 
 Their thoughts with ours, and make us do ? 
 
 Mesmeric thought from them to you, 
 
 When you reach out your thoughts to them, 
 
 A line of means you have with them ? 
 
 The mind unchanging is ethereal, 
 
 Holds its identity through changed material, 
 
 No matter how the body may 
 
 Be with disease, or health, or gray 
 
 With age, or buoyant youth expressed ; 
 
 Mind acts with thought the more or less ; 
 
 And thus we see there is refined, 
 
 Unseen — with elements of mind 
 
 In Nature, that unchanged will be 
 
 Through cold and heat variety. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. II 
 
 The same as Attraction polar draws 
 
 Toward the north, unchanging cause ; 
 
 And thus we reason Nature holds 
 
 Unchanging tendencies of things untold ; 
 
 With reason, comprehension too, 
 
 We thus can bring the unseen to view ; 
 
 The unseen elements will flow, 
 
 Through a material substance go. 
 
 Thus magnetism in the stone, 
 
 Gives to the knife-blade of its own ; 
 
 And both will then the needle draw 
 
 Through a material substance there ; 
 
 A spirit substance will declare ; 
 
 Will go right through material seen, 
 
 As life permeates between 
 
 The substance of material forms, 
 
 As in the knife-blade there performs, 
 
 A substance that material fills, 
 
 Imparted to it as our wills 
 
 Of life, will move a body, too, 
 
 And permeate it through and through ; 
 
 While ours is personal in thought, 
 
 Magnetism is like a substance wrought ; 
 
 That will express its nature there 
 
 Invisible, unchanging where 
 
 It occupies material space, 
 
 And never seems to take its place ; 
 
 No more than a drop of water will make 
 
 A lump of sugar larger take 
 
 Its form, by adding, it would be 
 
12 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 No larger in its form to see. 
 So life may occupy space between 
 Atomic structures, that is seen, 
 But so infinitesimal that to view- 
 It seems a perfect solid to 
 Us, but then 'tis porous through 
 A miscroscope — atomic view, 
 In every part of every grade ; 
 The physical body, it is made. 
 The spiritual body may be so 
 That clothes the mind while it doth grow ; 
 For every atom doth combine, 
 Touched by its spiritual, with mind ; 
 That central force in atoms seen, 
 Is spiritual and what we mean, 
 And when the mind a body made, 
 Out of materials every grade, 
 The spirit atom in them through, 
 Would make a spirit body, too. 
 
 THE USE OF A MATERIAL BODY. 
 
 LIFE self-motion will assert ; 
 But it must first be held inert ; 
 If in selfhood it would grow ; 
 In material atom so 
 It was bound, a central force 
 In life's progress upward course. 
 The positive and negative atom unite 
 In one electrical circle of power. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 13 
 
 In the union so combined, 
 We possess a dual mind ; 
 As two things will come to be 
 One in personality ; 
 Two eyes blend into one sight, 
 So doth two in one unite ; 
 So doth two lobes of the brain 
 Unite one intellect the same, 
 And two atoms thus combine, 
 In the chemistry of mind ; 
 Making just one form we see 
 Natural to personality ; 
 Because two personals combine 
 Natural union of a mind, 
 Personal both as its source 
 Feels a nature as one force ; 
 The principals of female and male, 
 That in all Nature as one prevail, 
 Thus one moving force combine ; 
 Union of one moving mind, 
 The two natures move as one, 
 Naturally as one become ; 
 An individual form would grow 
 From this natural force we know ; 
 If they burst their atom cell, 
 As the seed will larger swell 
 And send upward to a tree, 
 What that seed contained to be ; 
 Through selections which it drew 
 Revealed the physical to view ; 
 
14 THE LYRIC OF LIFE, 
 
 And individual life expressed, 
 
 A unit form in matter dressed, 
 
 With atoms of materials bound, 
 
 When life the physical had found ; 
 
 And why materials came to be 
 
 A person of individuality. 
 
 You see the mind, its form and grade, 
 
 By growth of physical it made ; 
 
 Inharmonious shapes are so 
 
 Parts of mind that cannot grow ; 
 
 If conditions it had got 
 
 All affinitizing not ; 
 
 So the mental atom mind 
 
 Is inherent, yet you'll find 
 
 Of its species to unfold ; 
 
 Its conditions, too, are told ; 
 
 When it bursts its prison cell, 
 
 And unwraps itself so well, 
 
 With a body to adorn, 
 
 That unfolds its shape and form, 
 
 Shape of what that life will be 
 
 Moving on eternally. 
 
 You see the mind's mesmeric power 
 
 Is something invisible in our 
 
 Elements thrown off from mind ; 
 
 Thought transference, too, you find, 
 
 Is something invisible, unseen, 
 
 That passes from that mind between 
 
 The two, and makes the other do 
 
 Their will, is this attraction, too ? 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 1$ 
 
 This shows a hidden force the same ; 
 And mind attraction will explain 
 That mind was once an atom force, 
 From that of Universal Source, 
 Or would its nature be to bind, 
 And to it attract some other mind ? 
 The stronger to subserve the one, 
 That yielding to it did become 
 Moved, by the power — another mind 
 That through attraction thus did bind ; 
 Or by its hate, the law repel ; 
 Finds its expression, too, as well ; 
 To individualize itself, you know, 
 Attraction helps it larger grow ; 
 And draws material to combine — 
 The physical, by power of mind, 
 Secreted in itself to grow, 
 And larger individualize it — so 
 Natural as Universal Mind 
 That doth all worlds within it bind. 
 
 SEEN BY COMPREHENSION. 
 
 IS not attraction something seen, 
 When it will hold with strength between 
 Two worlds, more strong than any power 
 Of a material, which in our 
 Knowledge could more stronger pull, 
 Than this of which all space is full ? 
 And if a substance will we find 
 
l6 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 That it is atomically combined, 
 
 As all material substance bound 
 
 Up in atoms, will be found ; 
 
 Attraction, you must plainly see, 
 
 Is not electricity, for we 
 
 Can tell their difference this way : 
 
 One through glass will go, we say, 
 
 While the other cannot go 
 
 Through the pane of glass, we know ; 
 
 Hence their difference is plain, 
 
 They cannot be both the same. 
 
 Both are substances unseen, 
 
 Whose presence moves, and it would seem 
 
 That something must be there to stir 
 
 An object, and I would prefer 
 
 To know if it would not be found, 
 
 Like all substances, atomic bound ? 
 
 Each atom natural to be 
 
 Invisible, like mind, in thee, 
 
 That as a unit moves like force, 
 
 And if attraction was the source 
 
 From which it sprung to larger life ? 
 
 Its unit mind-force growing more 
 
 And larger than it was before, 
 
 It manifested higher power, 
 
 And added motion, as in our 
 
 Growth of personality ; 
 
 Our life shows what it grows to be, 
 
 When it grew larger to begin 
 
 To show intelligence within ; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 1 7 
 
 And breathing motion-life assume, 
 
 A consciousness to life illume 
 
 With thoughts, peculiar to its own, — 
 
 Results from larger motion grown, 
 
 From where it began itself to grow 
 
 From something like attraction that we know 
 
 To be a universal love, 
 
 By which all worlds doth move above ; 
 
 Love is a sentiment of mind ; 
 
 And has inherent thoughts combined 
 
 Within an atom of its force, 
 
 That doth reveal, mind is its source ; 
 
 And Love that moves all worlds entwined 
 
 In universal bonds is Mind ; 
 
 A finer element we see 
 
 Than moving electricity ; 
 
 But this is also just the same 
 
 A force invisible again, 
 
 Composed of atoms which will explain 
 
 The source of vegetable life forms ; 
 
 Their life growth just like ours performs ; 
 
 But opposite to us must be ; 
 
 Their life exhales oxygen to thee, 
 
 And carbonic gas, which we exhale 
 
 To them, is life, and so you see, 
 
 A complement for each are we. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 
 IS ATTRACTION ATOMIC BECAUSE IT 
 SEPARATES ? 
 
 WE know attraction in the stone 
 Will to the knife-blade impart its own ; 
 And both will be attraction force 
 When separated from the source. 
 Attraction has by this explained, 
 That it of atoms is contained ; 
 That it is substance like the rest, 
 That has atomic been expressed, 
 Because it separates the same, 
 As coarser substance we could name ; 
 As coarser substance said to be 
 Atomic from this cause, so we 
 Can critically, from this cause, claim 
 Attraction must be just the same, 
 Of atoms bound, to disunite, 
 When love more strong attracts them quite 
 Out of the lode-stone, both possessed 
 Attraction separate expressed, 
 And both would draw the needle through 
 This element unseen to view. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 19 
 
 FORCES ASSOCIATED IN THE SUN-RAY. 
 
 TWAS found to be upon the "plate," 
 When scientists a ray did take, 
 Connected with " galvanometer coil" 
 And "gridiron wire," and found that all, 
 Through " Breguet's helix*," was displayed, 
 Four elements the sun-ray made ; 
 All associated as one, 
 That come to us in ray of sun, 
 The needles, deflected, found the force 
 Of electricity in sun-ray source ; 
 Circulating through the wires ; 
 Magnetism in the coil ; 
 And heat within the helix bound, 
 And motion next in needles found. 
 What was this motion, was it mind, 
 With the three other things combined, 
 Contained within the sun-ray force ? 
 Mind germs combined, a force would show, 
 Invisible in nature, too. 
 
 * "An elegant instrument formed by a coil ot two metals, the unequal expansion 
 of which indicates slight changes in temperature — the other extremities of the gal- 
 vanometer and helix are connected by a wire and the needles brought to zero. As 
 soon as a beam ot either daylight or the oxy-hydrogen light is, by raising the shut- 
 ter, permitted to impinge upon the plate the needles deflected. Thus light being 
 the initiating force, we get chemical action on the plate, electricity circulating 
 through the wires, magnetism in the coil, heat in the helix, and motion in the 
 needles. Experiments of Prof. W. R. Grove, found in a work entitled ' Correla- 
 tion and Conservation of Forces,' page 116 — a work by Edward L. Yomans." 
 
20 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 MIND NATURAL TO MOTION. 
 
 MIND is the only thing 
 From rest a motion will begin ; 
 From perfect rest, will awake and be 
 Itself in action simply free ; 
 A motion set up and begin 
 Itself, so natural within. 
 And so we reason this may show 
 A force of motion natural so ; 
 Contained in elements of sun, — 
 The fountain source — all life-germs sprung ; 
 If it is mind, we have the source 
 Of life-germs in attractive force. 
 If life-germs in it, is explained, 
 What sunlight elements contained ; 
 Why flowers will bud and bloom if where 
 The sunshine falls upon them there, 
 And in the shade will grow and be 
 Without a bud or flower to see, 
 The sunshine falls upon the earth, 
 And fills it with life-germs for the birth 
 Of bud and bloom up to arise, 
 And question us with the surprise, 
 We often feel when there is grown, 
 New life where never seed is sown ; 
 And after this those forms contain 
 Those reproductive germs, — explained 
 In offspring, the same species — kind, 
 That each attract similar of mind, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 21 
 
 To that of which its life contains, 
 And heredity in all explains ; 
 And this same law to all that live, 
 Has found the source that life doth give ; 
 Has found it in the rays of light, 
 And all life stretches for the sight 
 Again, of sunlight from its home, 
 From whence it to the earth has flown ; 
 For sun has parent love that draws 
 Us toward it — the attraction's cause ; 
 That law of parentage for their own 
 Is still in us for offspring shown ; 
 Inherent love that towards them draws 
 That mother love without a cause : 
 That toward her offspring cling if one 
 Should be disowned and all would shun ; 
 So sun-rays reaches all with love, 
 And draws all life toward her above. 
 
 DUAL LIFE. 
 
 EVERY thing we know is paired, 
 Dual oneness is declared ; 
 The universe's attraction source 
 Is parent love — the central force ; 
 In its attractive force combined, 
 Are male and female — Dual Mind. 
 As the source from whence we came, 
 So is paired in us the same. 
 Two parts of every thing have we, 
 
2 2 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 United product one will be ; 
 
 Two atoms in our body go 
 
 United, through its forces flow ; 
 
 Unite as one force equal powers, 
 
 In this small universe of ours ; 
 
 The male and female so combined. 
 
 Two atom lives unite in mind 
 
 Complete one electrical circle round, 
 
 In union only one is found ; 
 
 The positive and the negative one 
 
 Unite and personal become 
 
 One dual nature, acts from two parts ; 
 
 If in perfection we could start, 
 
 A perfect balanced power would be 
 
 And no sex superiority ; 
 
 And neither sex as marked be shown ; 
 
 If perfect balance both were grown. 
 
 All the universe is filled 
 
 With perfect love attraction still ; 
 
 That draws all systems round the one 
 
 Of Parent Love — its central sun. 
 
 The two in one of Dual Mind, 
 
 Within attractive force combined, 
 
 All Presence — God and Mother love, 
 
 Reaches all space and worlds above. 
 
 And atom lives in theirs express 
 
 This dual nature more or less ; 
 
 And parent love inherent move, 
 
 In us toward offspring, this doth prove ; 
 
 Binding all life in one embrace, 
 
 Of all there is in moving space. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 23 
 
 THE ASSERTION OF SEX FORMS. 
 
 TWO atoms unite in the marriage of one ; 
 As two lobes of the brain one mind will become, 
 Or two eyes that are normal blend into one sight, 
 So a positive and negative atom unite 
 In one electrical circle of motion ; 
 The one the most active in this mind commotion, 
 Asserts its predominence over the one 
 Less active in power, and the person become 
 The male or female, whichever it be, 
 That has the predominate power, you will see 
 Expressed in the sex of a person to grow ; 
 The union of which will heredity show. 
 And thus a dual nature have we, 
 The male and female has expression in thee ; 
 The right and left side of the body will show 
 Two things into one dual body will grow ; 
 Two atoms united in marriage of one ; 
 As two parts united one person become ; 
 So we in the progress of life motion see; 
 The course of progression to individualize thee, 
 In self-assertion the larger to grow, 
 And what your inherent atom life show, 
 For both so united each one will express 
 In the growth of each other their traits, more or less. 
 Two atoms united one person will be, 
 The positive and negative one are in thee ; 
 A body of many as one we will find, 
 In the growth of a plant all together combined ; 
 
24 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And yet an all-present personality will show, 
 
 In your consciousness, no part can sever, you know, 
 
 By the knife of the surgeon, your presence you feel, 
 
 Your identity somewhere, your person conceal ; 
 
 And so it continues, through waste of the years, 
 
 From youth unto age, when your youth disappears, 
 
 It is not the physical, but what it contains, — 
 
 The person of mind, that eternal remains, 
 
 In the image of God two powers are made one, 
 
 The male and female one person become. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE MENTAL ATOM. 
 
 NATURE has many invisible forces ; 
 Are they not all atomic, in all their vast courses ? 
 As all coarser substanses are atoms we see, 
 So of spirit atoms these forces may be, 
 Whose nature is action and electrical motion, 
 Have the nature invisible in mind commotion ; 
 Each atom of which is a unit of mind, 
 The force that arranges and strives to combine, 
 Its selections of matter in body and form, 
 That stirs it with motion and mind, to conform, 
 And is that invisible something to give 
 The clothing of matter, in which it doth live ; 
 Matter expresses a personal thing ; 
 And dissolves whenever life leaves it, again, 
 For life that rebuilt it as fast as decay, 
 Has left it to after dissolve all away. 
 And death, they proclaim, is the last of the mind, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 25 
 
 Because 'tis unseen when it leaves the earth shrine. 
 
 Now, mind is unseen when it lives, moves and shows 
 
 Its expression in substance along which it grows ; 
 
 The substance so closely resembles its own, 
 
 That to move, it must move, and such it is known 
 
 As the body that lives ; why does it e'er cease 
 
 To move, think and act, and the mind-power release, 
 
 As long as 'tis organized, if it is that you say 
 
 That causes the mind, how is it, I pray ? 
 
 O, mind is that something that organized it ; 
 
 For as soon as mind leaves it no longer will get 
 
 New atoms to build it, as fast as decay 
 
 That wastes, and has left it, and then hear you say 
 
 That bodies make mind. O, how can that be ? 
 
 For mind was that thing that attracts them you see, 
 
 That organizes substance, whatever the form, 
 
 And the life has the shape and makes it conform 
 
 To a body, and through it, the life is expressive, 
 
 Of striving to be either good or aggressive ; 
 
 No matter whatever that life is to be, 
 
 It moves, moulds that matter the shape that you see, 
 
 And when they have served all that life from them gains, 
 
 The motion that built it, goes out and remains 
 
 Bodies of matter, all motionless — dead, 
 
 Until they, too, separate, — parts each are fled, 
 
 But these atoms of matter progressed with life motion, 
 
 Feels the impulse more active of another commotion, 
 
 That life may a step higher, strive to reveal, 
 
 In materialized form — there itself to conceal ; 
 
 And wooed to a marriage two atoms unite, 
 
26 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 In one dual being a little more bright ; 
 
 The strongest predominating, the sex it asserts, 
 
 From the one that is weakest the other subverts, 
 
 And either a male or female is seen, 
 
 Materialized up into life's moving stream ; 
 
 Moving onward to life that can think, love and feel, 
 
 Until the long chain of progression reveals. 
 
 Atoms material, making better conditions 
 
 For life in unfolding equal all its positions 
 
 That life is to take in fruition of mind, 
 
 That upward advances to each human kind ; 
 
 Yes, all that our bodies of matter possess, 
 
 Has been used o'er and o'er by minds of far less 
 
 Unfoldment than ours, in material form ; 
 
 But steps up the ladder of life now adorn 
 
 The beauty of mind in realized bliss, 
 
 In individual life-growth its first stage is this. 
 
 But we always have been in the atoms before, 
 
 And our primitive growth first began here to soar ; 
 
 To this stage it reaches when conscious of life ; 
 
 We think, love and feel, though it may be in strife, 
 
 For feeling our way out to heights we may reach, 
 
 We gather experience lessons that teach 
 
 Us wiser each day, until never more 
 
 Will our troubles be those we have met with before ; 
 
 And thus we arise from the thraldom of earth, 
 
 And darkness we meet in our primitive birth ; 
 
 Arise as the seed from the bosom of clay, 
 
 To blossom and fruit in the sun's warmer ray ; 
 
 Enrooted with earth like a tree in its flight, 
 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 27 
 
 Its life-course return to the root of this life, 
 As long as love draws them to dissipate strife ; 
 Return with the feeling to help those below, 
 To faster progress in the ways now they know ; 
 To shun many struggles they met on the way ; 
 So those that have waited for the life of to-day, 
 To start on their journey of living, to see 
 A light in the distance for posterity ; 
 So those that are waiting in archieves of time, 
 For conditions when they may begin life sublime ; 
 Will not be delayed by no chances before, 
 Because the material that's used o'er and o'er 
 Becomes better adapted for life to unfold 
 Now than ages before — those along ago old. 
 And those now far onward up the ladder of life, 
 Come back in their love to remove earthly strife, 
 That ignorance met in its primitive form, 
 When human began long before you were born. 
 
 THE ONENESS OF MIND. 
 
 IN what do you say does the mind power reveal ? 
 In consciousness that a body you feel ; 
 The surgeon may cut off your leg or your arm, 
 So much, then, of organization is gone ; 
 But you are still conscious your form is complete, 
 Mind is consciousness, is n't it ? — the life-giving seat 
 Of thought, — and that arm or limb you ever will feel ; 
 And no surgeon's knife its presence can steal 
 From your mind, as a unit its limit is one 
 
28 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Body complete, and will not become 
 
 Severed of any part of itself, 
 
 No matter where lies that invisible elf ; 
 
 It holds to some part of the body it made, 
 
 That which has ever its presence obeyed, 
 
 And will continue to move it, until it might hate 
 
 Every part of material, should it have a changed state ; 
 
 Then it leaves it all through, every part is bereft 
 
 Of motion, and life for the mind body left ; 
 
 But should it hold yet to some part of the form, 
 
 Its presence unseen may be there to perform ; 
 
 And it could command each part, though it be 
 
 Distant from it, through its law of affinity, 
 
 For mind power has love of attraction so strong, 
 
 Love over that, to which it did belong ; 
 
 Has something within it, of God like a thing 
 
 Of transmitting thought, through distance to cling, 
 
 A mesmeric force upon it declare, 
 
 When suddenly killed, its material there, 
 
 By the thought, it is mine/hold it yet still to move 
 
 With impressions, its last thought of action doth prove, 
 
 That makes it from danger strive to be free, 
 
 Involuntary impulse of thought still you see. 
 
 Our life has the brain as the seat of the mind, 
 
 If you hit it a blow will it yet be confined ? 
 
 O, yes, for affinity holds it still there, 
 
 But it closes in sleep, self-protecting with care ; 
 
 Unconscious it dwells, but 'tis held in the form 
 
 And all of its involuntary action goes on. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 29 
 
 WHAT IS SLEEP? 
 
 WHAT is sleep, that it shuts itself up so enwrapt, 
 That mind in self-protection is apt? 
 It is that power mind holds to its primitive state, 
 A power that mind has from its youth to the end, 
 To return to the scenes and its youth life extend, 
 Return from the distance of age, though it be 
 Connected with time where it started to be ; 
 So mind in its sleep goes far down to the time 
 When it slept in the atom, secreted was mind 
 And that instinct still uses to make it secure, 
 In all the vast change that its living endure. 
 
 MIND NATURAL TO MOTION. 
 
 MIND shuts itself up in inclosure from thought 
 If by such a process self-protection is sought 
 So sleep is that primitive state of the mind, 
 That we carry still with us, as higher we climb, 
 Just as the mind carries its power to possess, 
 Every memory with it to age more or less. 
 If healthy the person he has it more clear ; 
 By disease of some kinds it might all disappear ; 
 And if it is fettered, inactive and dull, — 
 Held yet in the material, — or by a dent of the skull 
 The moment you raise it, and set the mind free, 
 It begins itself acting — you surely can see. 
 Held in material because there is yet, 
 
3<D THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 In some parts of the body affinity yet, 
 
 And mind being single it cannot yet go 
 
 Until every part has released it, you know. 
 
 What is there but mind, that can stir, think and move, 
 
 Without being set in motion ? To prove 
 
 That mind has that nature, if only set free, 
 
 To begin its own thinking — and awake it will be, 
 
 After it is unconscious, and held there so long, 
 
 It loses no part of itself in the form ? 
 
 The form may be changed thrice over this while, 
 
 Independent it is and retains all it had ; 
 
 As soon as it sets up its thought-power again, 
 
 Everything that it knew you see it retain ; 
 
 So mind does not waste with the body and brain, 
 
 It commences to think — and its last thought will say ; 
 
 For it has lost nothing it had, while it slept, 
 
 While the body of matter constant changes has kept ; 
 
 But it couldn't waste any part of the mind, 
 
 For it closed itself up and in sleep was confined ; 
 
 It can live independent of matter, — in thought, 
 
 Although it is closely in love with it wrought ; 
 
 But thanks to the Infinite of such is Him, 
 
 Mind can wake from the densest of sleep and begin 
 
 To think of itself, its electrical motion, 
 
 Is action — and natural to all mind emotion ; 
 
 Unchanging in nature, so we never can die 
 
 If in unconscious sleep our senses may lie, 
 
 For as soon as we leave the body that binds, 
 
 We arise to a life that is fairer for minds ; 
 
 Where the mind is set free to select as it will 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 3 1 
 
 And it conscious awakes in a life fairer still ; 
 
 Because in its action, has consciousness grown, 
 
 And all that it added, within it is shown ; 
 
 Exists there, a grown atom larger, to find 
 
 The realm where it was a life-atom of mind. 
 
 As a seed is a tree before it has grown, 
 
 Concealed up within it would never have known 
 
 The body and branches and leaves that would grow 
 
 Out of that seed from an atom we know ; 
 
 So we from an atom of mind have begun 
 
 And larger have grown in the light of the sun, 
 
 Until it lit up the depths of our being, 
 
 To self-individualize conscious of seeing ; 
 
 Beholding the universe, bathing in light, 
 
 That streamed in our mind and gave us our sight ; 
 
 Drew in by attraction the breath of the air 
 
 And this breathing motion gave consciousness where 
 
 We came in conditions with thought to begin, 
 
 With the Being we lived in that led up to Him. 
 
 Led out into light of a limitless day, 
 
 To blossom and fruit in our lives every way. 
 
 Thus higher the law of motion doth tend 
 
 To move ever on from beginning to end ; 
 
 That energy flowing through Nature, to be 
 
 Everywhere present, is Mind that we see 
 
 Of intelligent power, before we began 
 
 To develop a thought — manifested in man ; 
 
 Such a substance must be in the primeval source, 
 
 Or we could not give it expression of course ; 
 
 For something like mind no never could come, 
 
32 
 
 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Such thinking results — out of nothing begun ; 
 And units of mind be expressed we well know, 
 If it was not atomic — that mind power we see 
 In Nature as force — its atoms are we. 
 
 THE ALL-SOURCE. 
 
 THE Source increase ? that could not be 
 By growth of atom individuality. 
 Supposing all boundary of space 
 Would organization of God embrace ; 
 If the atoms of His mind 
 Enlarging, growing, should combine 
 As much from their surrounding motion 
 As compared to their increased proportion, 
 Would not the fountain be the same, 
 But differently proportioned bulk remain ? 
 To illustrate : We will take 
 An egg, and all its contents make 
 Just the fullness of its whole 
 An atom in it of a soul, 
 When individualized into the chick, 
 It fills it, when it pecks and picks ; 
 For room it takes not any more 
 Than that within the egg before ; 
 So we no larger fill Unknown 
 Of Life — when we are larger grown ; 
 The elements combined will be 
 Within our individuality ; 
 And only differently proportioned, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. $3 
 
 Would be the contents of "All Motion. " 
 And if no boundary to space, 
 There's room enough to all embrace. 
 God does not sit upon a throne, 
 As kings and presidents are known, 
 Sometimes in anger — sometimes in love ; 
 " We in His body live and move." 
 
 REINCARNATION. 
 
 MATTER in all its varied scenes 
 Of here and there in lives it screens, 
 With bodies, must be moved with thought 
 That other lives upon it wrought ; 
 Where matter must have been before, 
 It came for us to work it o'er. 
 Once we were an atom force, 
 In a material one, of course ; 
 We helped to form a body then, 
 Before in this one we had been. 
 If we have lived before in life 
 And witnessed much of joy and strife, 
 If in an atom we have been 
 In some material body — when 
 We formed a part of nerve and mind, 
 While we were with them so combined, 
 And acted in the brain of thought, 
 Of some old sage, that had enwrought 
 On us his mind, and made us do 
 The work as servants of his view ; 
 
34 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Those thoughts impressed us as a dower 
 
 In concert action, gave to our 
 
 Mentality, that would us thrill 
 
 In flesh, his biddings to fulfill ; 
 
 That we retained when he expelled 
 
 Us from his body, and was quelled 
 
 Our motion, to life-giving power, 
 
 That coursed us through his flesh each hour, 
 
 Then reincarnationists are we, 
 
 For atoms made bodies before me. 
 
 If we the atoms have composed 
 
 Something magnetic, among those 
 
 That did make up ethereal form, 
 
 Or nerve force, long ere we were born. 
 
 For mind and matter must unite, 
 
 And matter must be yielding quite 
 
 Unto the mind, if it obey ; 
 
 And could it do it — think, I say, 
 
 If it could do what mind would tell, 
 
 Unless it understood it well. 
 
 Along its courses to transmit 
 
 A thought unto the brain, could it ? 
 
 The atoms making up the nerve 
 
 Must catch the thought to do and serve ; 
 
 And if it had received that thought 
 
 In concert with the others wrought. 
 
 This must be reason sometimes, thrills 
 
 Respond, that all our being fills, 
 
 Respond unto a wave of thought, 
 
 That in our thinking is outwrought. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 35 
 
 Though wonderous very it must be, 
 
 Nerve atoms must understand, you see, 
 
 To carry hurts unto the mind, 
 
 The thought of pain when burned we find ; 
 
 If it obey the thought and will 
 
 Of sentiments the body fill. 
 
 And somehow may we not recall 
 
 From that primeval life through all, 
 
 Somewhere before, where we have been. 
 
 Just as the atom will extend 
 
 Its sleep to older age of life ? 
 
 And may recall some scene of strife, 
 
 Or intense joy, in days of yore — 
 
 The atom life we were before. 
 
 Enclosed in sleep, mind dangers shun 
 
 When it unconscious does become, 
 
 To fall in sleep as do the flowers, 
 
 And close up all their waking powers. 
 
 Mind is a labyrinth most strange, 
 
 In all its varied growth and change. 
 
 And if our atom mind had been 
 
 Incarnate in the brain of men, 
 
 That lived a thousand years before 
 
 We might live somehow that scene o'er ; 
 
 Whose mind had thrilled the nervous frame, 
 
 That you composed within his brain ; 
 
 And thus its recollection wrought 
 
 Within you, in your after-thought 
 
 Of growing individual life ; 
 
 Some by-gone scene of distant strife, 
 

 36 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Before you grew in all your powers, 
 
 To bud and bloom in mindful hours. 
 
 You held it as a seed might hold, 
 
 Some autumn scene of sunset gold, 
 
 That touched the tree from whence it fell, 
 
 Within the seed — the life it held ; 
 
 Some tale the zephyrs may have kissed 
 
 In blossom, ere in fold and twist, 
 
 It wrapt the seed, that it might grow, 
 
 Before it fell to earth below ; 
 
 Before it burst its prison shell 
 
 And showed a tree wrapt in its cell ; 
 
 That larger expanded out, and grew, 
 
 And clothed itself from air and dew ; 
 
 And showed a larger tree to grow, 
 
 Concealed so small in seed below 
 
 From which it sprung. So we may hold 
 
 Within our atom life — untold 
 
 Some scene, before where we had grown 
 
 And coursed in substance nerve or bone, 
 
 Imparted to our atom life, 
 
 Some thrilling scene of man or wife, 
 
 Wherein we moved and formed a part 
 
 Of atoms in the pulsing heart. 
 
 And when in after scenes we grew 
 
 To larger life our atom view, 
 
 Might not express in memory powers, 
 
 Reflections from primeval hours, 
 
 Because the brighter life we gain 
 
 Eclipsed in shadow to remain 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 37 
 
 Impressions on them made before, 
 That atoms gain repeated o'er. 
 And matter must progress this way 
 To better serve and thought obey. 
 To make conditions for a mind 
 To freely grow, and not confine 
 The mind-growth, as in primal days, 
 When it was fettered, but in ways 
 Of coarsest thought realms to unfold, 
 Some parts would grow, and others hold 
 Back, from expression in the form, 
 And make it inharmonious born. 
 
 PHYSIOGNOMY READS ARIGHT. 
 
 GROW out in some direction where 
 Matter moved most ready, there 
 It had enormous growth expressed 
 Of mind, and ugly and distressed, 
 Were forms to look upon — from where 
 We stand to-day, and growths compare; 
 There cramped into some hideous shape 
 That took a long time to escape. 
 Through progression of matter, time 
 Has made material more with mind 
 To grow in all its equal powers; 
 And thus have bodies more like ours. 
 Matter affinitized more with life, 
 Expresses now beyond such strife, 
 

 38 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Of forms and shapes, as when began 
 Material, long ago with man. 
 To clothe the atom-mind in growth, 
 Of individual form and worth 
 Of all that atom must contain. 
 
 PROGRESSION OF MATTER. 
 
 MATTER expresses now more the 
 Conditions, that mind can draw and hold 
 It in all concert action when 
 Revealed, is seen the form of men; 
 Matter in concert will allow 
 Life beauty well developed now ; 
 For matter does not mind contract, 
 But concert with it matter acts ; 
 More full and round it shapes the brain, 
 And intellect is just the same. 
 Affinitized with thought will be, 
 Each organ well expressed — you see ; 
 Because material more or less, 
 With mind has heretofore progressed ; 
 The more 'tis moved to mind commotion, 
 More sensitive grows to thought emotion ; 
 Each life before had some extreme 
 Of character, where it is seen 
 With power sufficient there to move 
 Matter by extreme of love ; 
 And so in time matter is made 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 39 
 
 To yield to almost all thought grade 
 
 In life below us, to express 
 
 All kinds of traits the more or less ; 
 
 If by intense growth matter thrills, 
 
 Then for that trait matter fills, 
 
 And yields to mind in quick respond, 
 
 When touched by mind — some higher bond. 
 
 Matter progresses in this way 
 
 To yield to minds developed sway ; 
 
 When all the organs shall be full, 
 
 It finds matter that will feel its pull ; 
 
 Thus every trait of mind can show, 
 
 Progressed from extreme traits — below ; 
 
 The deer has mind extreme in fear, 
 
 The tiny feet to run is here ; 
 
 The lion selfishness in power, 
 
 And jaws would grow to best devour. 
 
 Its strength was in this trait of mind 
 
 Because the others were confined. 
 
 And so each life below, expressed 
 
 How materials, for each trait progressed 
 
 To culminate in form of mind 
 
 Expressed in man — more ballanced find 
 
 Each trait of character, so round, 
 
 More perfect shape the head is found ; 
 
 And as the fullness of our mind 
 
 Selects and doth such matter find, 
 
 To move harmonious to its will, 
 
 A perfect roundness all doth fill, 
 
 In every part of shape and form. 
 
40 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 That doth an intellect adorn ; 
 
 That is the height of human mind, 
 
 And faster upward now we climb ; 
 
 For matter fills the air and spaces, 
 
 With atoms for the different graces, 
 
 To find unfoldment at the will 
 
 Of that strange thing that does it fill, 
 
 With life and beauty to ascend, 
 
 Towards progression's higher end ; 
 
 And why we see on earth to-day, 
 
 More perfect forms in every way; 
 
 Because in that primeval time 
 
 The action most with human mind, 
 
 And beast, was self -protective thought; 
 
 And its extreme of action wrought, 
 
 A body having means to kill, 
 
 That would subserve its inward will, 
 
 That moved materials to unite 
 
 In all the different shapes of fright; 
 
 And mind was motion and would go 
 
 If bound, in ways that it would grow; 
 
 And mind was tenant thus imprisoned, 
 
 Until matter had thus arisen 
 
 Through species, each filled some full pleasure 
 
 In life's.full octave's onward measure; 
 
 More perfect shape of physic form, 
 
 Because the mind that does conform 
 
 It, with its motions can express, 
 
 Its fullness rounded out — and less 
 
 Of growth the baser, on to build, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 41 
 
 In harmonious action of the will. 
 
 The selfish must life growth express 
 
 To gain survival with the rest; 
 
 The base with the soprano tone, 
 
 Perfects the mind when higher grown; 
 
 So all can blend as in a tune, 
 
 And thoughts of melody assume; 
 
 The base with all the rest is sweet, 
 
 If every organ can repeat 
 
 Its tone, then harmony is wrought 
 
 Out of the full growth of all thought; 
 
 Thus higher life growth is made known, 
 
 In thought, when each organ has its own 
 
 Assertion, in the human frame, 
 
 And material cramps it not the same 
 
 As in the long ago of time; 
 
 The form and face is shaped by mind; 
 
 And if matter has less yielding power 
 
 With mind, and moves not by its thought, 
 
 Then it must o'er and o'er be wrought, 
 
 Below the plane of human life; 
 
 Develop through the growing strife 
 
 Of forms, until it can unfold, 
 
 So life below us we behold 
 
 In different species having will 
 
 Expressed in shapes to flee, or kill; 
 
 For self protection is the thought 
 
 On which existence base is wrought; 
 
 The primal step of mind to gain 
 
 Assertion on the earthly plane; 
 
42 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 The first condition which we see 
 Of growth in individuality; 
 For clothed with matter life is enshrined 
 Secure for growth of human mind. 
 'Tis plainly seen 'tis life's intent — 
 Security — where'er it went, 
 Its active nature held we know 
 From moving, would itself then grow. 
 
 USEFULNESS OF MATERIAL. 
 
 HELD by material substance around, 
 Then its activity was bound. 
 So inert conditions it must gain 
 And why material forms ? — why explain 
 The atom life its selfhood found, 
 When by conditions it was bound. 
 So higher thought than ours will beam 
 In life's progressive moving stream; 
 Intelligence of higher power 
 Of life, in laws enabling our 
 Materials, new thought still to find — 
 Expression from an atom mind. 
 
 MATERIALISM. 
 
 OBJECTORS say materials make, 
 The mind, — Then how could you become 
 Different from another one 
 That with you breathed the self same air, 
 Alike your food and not compare 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 43 
 
 In species — both be just alike, — 
 
 But different minds as day and night. 
 
 Side by side two plants may grow, 
 
 And each selects its own to blow; 
 
 Its life's identity is there 
 
 Within the seed — as atoms are 
 
 Each, selecting from the same; 
 
 Shows different life the seed contain, 
 
 And its identity is shown, 
 
 When each bursts forth and larger grown; 
 
 And so it is with life that you 
 
 Hold in identity as true; 
 
 If bodies make the human mind, 
 
 Self same conditions you would find, 
 
 Would make two persons just alike; 
 
 But each appropriate and make 
 
 In each a very different shape, 
 
 So mind made you and was the force 
 
 The atom held in it, of course, 
 
 The mental atom — growing mind — 
 
 With all its added powers combined; 
 
 As it unfolded more and more, 
 
 From what it ever was before; 
 
 But showed from whence that atom came, 
 
 By its identity the same; 
 
 True to its source — but formed to be 
 
 What the conditions gave to thee, 
 
 To well express inherent powers. 
 
 And this is life and such is ours; 
 
 But life doth other forms unfold, 
 
 Of worlds, — will later on be told, 
 
44 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE THAT ATOMS EXIST. 
 
 AS person grows, — from germs were we 
 Then smaller yet we once might be; 
 Until by microscope unseen; 
 Or invisible in nature been 
 An unseen force or like its nature — 
 The unseen life of every creature 
 A unit force would reason show 
 'Twas personal, if person grow 
 Out of its expansion more, 
 It must have been personal before 
 It began to grow at all; 
 And why the proof of atoms small 
 Composing substances; we know 
 From germ forms personal, doth grow; 
 This is a proof that atoms all 
 Are first, when larger grows from small. 
 As some materialists now deny, 
 For atoms no one can espy; 
 Some things we know by comprehensions 
 When unseen are their force dimensions. 
 
 MIND ATOMS. 
 
 IF God's mind is Energy seen everywhere 
 In Nature, and mind with that Energy compare, 
 As substance invisible, then cannot mind be, 
 An atom of God's mind — of that Energy ? 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 45 
 
 And if natural to be in mind units now — 
 
 In atoms of mind, O who can avow, 
 
 That it will not the same be natural ever, 
 
 And each as a unit of mind be forever ? 
 
 And if 'tis mind magnetism flowing as life 
 
 Throughout every part in spaces so rife, 
 
 And it is expressed in atoms of mind, 
 
 It has correspondence to all that we find, 
 
 Composing all substance, that we know or see, 
 
 The course and the fine would they not the same be. 
 
 Invisible something is substance we know 
 
 For nothing, — in presence, would be or would show; 
 
 So if an invisible presence is there, 
 
 It must be a something for something is air; 
 
 And is not all something of atoms composed ? 
 
 It must be the same for of atoms are those, 
 
 In substance we see — then why not the unseen 
 
 Much finer — be atoms with spaces between ? 
 
 Of atoms we know the air is composed, 
 
 For water is air condensed, and arose 
 
 The water becomes the air once again: 
 
 And water drops, atoms unseen will proclaim, 
 
 As we look through the microscope there to behold 
 
 All the atoms so varied in shapes will unfold, 
 
 Just as all creation in God we might see, 
 
 As atoms of Him in creations that be; 
 
 And live in His body embracing the whole, 
 
 In which all therein, does His spirit control; 
 
 The u One and All Mind " — of which atoms are made, 
 
 Each unit a mind individual some grade; 
 
46 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 His life flowing out in all energy; 
 
 Of that life each person must be — 
 
 That life as God's magnetism, might be expressed, 
 
 All embracing His body as ours and no less; 
 
 And so our magnetic energy see 
 
 Composed of mind atoms it surely must be. 
 
 But we have another oneness of mind 
 
 Of consciousness in us, undivided we find 
 
 In all our body in every part, 
 
 That is a unit of mind from the start. 
 
 That grows by expansion larger of mind, 
 
 (In learning continues that nature we find); 
 
 That attracts the atoms the body to build, 
 
 That is the personal shaping us still. 
 
 And magnetism is a substance entwined, 
 
 A spirit substance similar to mind, 
 
 Made up of spirit atoms enshrined 
 
 With the material atoms — the force 
 
 In every atom, its center of course, 
 
 That is perceptible to the mind power; 
 
 That is searching in love for its atoms each hour, 
 
 Which it can touch with sensation of mind 
 
 And move the ethereal within them combined 
 
 In material cells, concealing that force 
 
 That must be the mind atom in it of course. 
 
 And so if attracting a body material, 
 
 It must from this reason have one — too ethereal, 
 
 Made up of spirit atoms unseen — 
 
 The spiritual body connecting between 
 
 Matter and mind; 
 
 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 47 
 
 And is the magnetic substance possessed; 
 
 By which we are known — and cannot divest 
 
 Of its coarseness, or fineness, unless with our mind, 
 
 It has an attraction, for that more refined; 
 
 And if for the love of the wise and the good, 
 
 Our mind seems to be, such can be understood, 
 
 By this atmosphere that will surely surround, 
 
 Filled with atoms progressed in quality, found 
 
 To be like ourselves, and of atoms composed 
 
 That inward and outward eternally flows. 
 
 For mind has its love for those atoms that draw 
 
 Toward it, combined in selections, its law 
 
 That in affinity to them incline, 
 
 And the atmosphere 'round them resemble the mind; 
 
 Aud others will feel their aura of light 
 
 Or otherwise darkness — their primitive night; 
 
 And sensitives will feel in this way the mind, 
 
 That a body doth hold within it enshrined; 
 
 If it hath correspondence with yours, you will feel 
 
 The power and the goodness they cannot conceal; 
 
 And both will the other in thought understand, 
 
 Through the windows of soul, or clasp of the hand; 
 
 But living will bring every soul into light, 
 
 Of love and of beauty to chase away night, 
 
 For night cannot always with darkness, enshrine 
 
 The growth of the soul, in the leap of the mind; 
 
 For out of the darkness it rises to-day, 
 
 And climbs ever upward in brightness alway; 
 
 Unfolding the blossom of thought in the soul, 
 
 All it has there inherent, in beauty unroll, 
 
48 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Unroll through the ages of time yet to be, 
 As branches and leaves and flowers on a tree 
 Speaks to the world its beauty and kind; 
 So we will be one of all human mind, 
 To show the ascendant of mind to progress 
 Out of all our selections from God's loveliness; 
 For everything here surrounds us we know 
 That will everywhere the higher we grow. 
 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 IF we can select it by growing supreme, 
 And from this unknowable gather and glean 
 As electricians have gathered from out the same air 
 That which produces a light from darkness once there 
 To the ancients, that lived in the time long ago; 
 So we can yet gather more brightness, we know, 
 That is undiscovered by wisdom to-day; 
 Out of God, that surrounds us, in just the same way. 
 If we do not select what will give us a light 
 Out of the elements, then we have the night; 
 So in all the dark worlds, that is told of above, 
 God does not make them — everywhere is His love; 
 But ignorance yet, in the growth of the mind, 
 May be swept away and a light they will find, 
 That will banish in God these dark worlds, to bliss, 
 And if so, 'twill do it, the same here in this 
 World — for if death cannot send any wicked ones there, 
 But what in the mind growth is brilliant and fair, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 49 
 
 Then no shadows above will shadow us here, 
 
 And all will ascend to a far brighter sphere 
 
 When they leave the earth life, to higher arise 
 
 In the marching of progress to life in the skies; 
 
 For God is all goodness, in which we all live, 
 
 And to all human longings its answers will give, 
 
 If we will but search for the wisdom of mind, 
 
 And through its own genius of living will find 
 
 The yet wondrous things of God that surround 
 
 Us everywhere, and it can be found, 
 
 What will bring us more glories as light has been known 
 
 And gathered from air as electric has shone. 
 
 THINGS OF SPACE. 
 
 SO that which gives the greatness to mind 
 And joys of living, we yet, too, may find; 
 So God everywhere present will be, 
 Making heaven for us — which we cannot now see; 
 If we can discover what more can be there, 
 Besides what we now have found in the air, 
 The elements which combined to produce 
 What may be enraptures — as well as for use; 
 We now have discovered that different parts 
 Of elements mingled have different arts. 
 The sun rays in photographing is shown 
 The reproduction of us, that once was unknown; 
 As varied ever more elements are, 
 Could we but combine them would sparkle a star, 
 
5° 
 
 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Of glory to us unthought of, unknown, 
 More luxuries ever than a King on a throne, 
 Might be our endownment if we could but find 
 From the elements round us, just those to combine, 
 These effects to produce, our wisdom must rise, 
 To bring its rich wealth as to those in the skies, 
 For Nature is everywhere equal the same, 
 If we can but find what its product will gain. 
 
 SPACE IS EVERYWHERE ALIKE. 
 
 THE planets that sweep through the spaces afar, 
 The earth just the same as the most brilliant star, 
 Finds everywhere through the great distant fields 
 It speeds in its orbit the same Nature reveals 
 Life elements for health and fitted to breathe, 
 Or else through some spaces that from air would leave, 
 That gives the life substance contained in the air; 
 So Nature must have it alike everywhere, 
 To fill this life element found in the air. 
 Throughout the all distance of space as we roam, 
 So much is alike we feel it our home; 
 The elements of life combined must be there, 
 No matter what region in distance we are, 
 The same must be all the vast regions of space, 
 Or else in the orbit of earth we would trace 
 Some different substance comprising our air, 
 And this must be proof 'tis alike everywhere 
 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 5 1 
 
 In Nature and God, but differently proportioned for 
 
 mind. 
 Progression will from it elements find 
 Out what, when united, will glory unfold, 
 And brightness of systems and worlds will unroll; 
 And from those bright worlds where the progress of 
 
 mind 
 Has arisen in knowledge, for centuries find 
 The bliss which they tell of — when back they return 
 To earth, where their life first started a germ; 
 The tranquil and peace of those regions of bliss 
 That find no comparison to it — in this 
 Pristine condition, where mind on the tree 
 Of life is but fruit, that is green now, to be 
 Growing and living, until it shall find 
 The ripened perfection of all human kind. 
 If bitter and evil our life seems to-day, 
 By simply existing and living it may 
 Outgrow all the evil, and ripened will find 
 The joy of existence, for each human mind 
 In the glory and sunshine that God doth create, 
 It will ripen creation all sooner or late, 
 For ultimate being is flowing forever, 
 Designings for good, from the Glorious Giver. 
 
 THE AIR. 
 
 THE sweetest music ever known 
 Was product of the air in tone; 
 To so combine the notes, that swells 
 Of air rushed through them, so compels 
 
52 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 The unity of those combined 
 
 With harmonies — so is the mind 
 
 An instrument with notes combined, 
 
 That as we breathe the air we find 
 
 The life converts it into tone, 
 
 The voice of thought through it is known; 
 
 Converts the action through the mind 
 
 Of many organs so entwined, 
 
 That in the unity of tone, 
 
 The thoughts produced — each have their own 
 
 Harmonious action sweet and full 
 
 Of melody in spoken word, 
 
 Or discord, as the sound is heard; 
 
 That each one's mind in voice produce 
 
 By what the air contains for use; 
 
 'Tis not the air that each inhale 
 
 That tells for each a different tale, 
 
 The air they breathe is surely right, 
 
 Has all the properties alike; 
 
 But each life has a different mind, 
 
 Of organs active so combined 
 
 That life propelling — breathing air, 
 
 Make thoughts in some minds sweet and fair, 
 
 That have each organ full in tone; 
 
 While others lacking — some ungrown 
 
 Do so unite in active thought, 
 
 That discord is the sound outwrought, 
 
 Out of the life force, so combined 
 
 That some may have an evil mind; 
 
 What is the remedy ? Not the air 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 53 
 
 That both inhale so sweet and fair, 
 That both are breathing it, the same, 
 The instrument is all to blame, 
 Through which the life concerts to be 
 The product of thought minstrelsy. 
 The remedy would be to reach, 
 To every human mind and teach 
 Them how to make each organ full 
 In growth, and discipline, to school 
 The growing strength of mind each hour 
 That every organ have full power. 
 And then no evil there would be 
 But different genius of mind, see 
 The action will in both produce, 
 The melody for different use. 
 
 THOUGHT IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 THAT each in the creation given 
 Have varied hues of thought for heaven; 
 That like the choicest flowers will be 
 Perfection different to see; 
 Each sending forth the sweet perfume 
 Of thoughts select, like choicest bloom. 
 Or like the harmonies of sound 
 That notes produce in music round 
 In sweetest melodies of tone; — 
 Music of mind thoughts each their own, 
 So justly made to perfect blend 
 In onward being without end. 
 
54 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And all discordant minds will be 
 Things of the past, — no evil see 
 Because through mind as it has grown 
 Into perfection each their own 
 Identity in future life, 
 Has found that peace beyond all strife, 
 That all are seeking so to gain; 
 The constant draw that will attain; 
 Which is the purpose and the end 
 That all our lives toward, extend; 
 That is progression's constant law 
 Towards a higher life to draw; 
 This Energy that moves the air 
 And all in space and everywhere; 
 Because the ultimate and end 
 Throughout, to every thing extend, 
 By growth into perfecton's flower, — 
 A fulness of inherent power, 
 That must proceed with moving time, 
 The nature of All-Seeing Mind 
 Is time and distance without end 
 In circling rhythms to extend. 
 And light of mind in future days, 
 May so invent in genius ways, 
 May so construct the keyboard sound, 
 Through echoes so enclosed around, 
 That it will harmonize in tone 
 In concert, to produce unknown 
 Melodious strains, with this same air 
 That nothing with it can compare, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 55 
 
 Or is produced by it to-day, 
 
 In softest, sweetest, music strains, 
 
 While all the air as now remains; 
 
 But out of its effects may see 
 
 Produced that which shows that there may be 
 
 Within this instrument of mind, 
 
 Something new that may unbind; 
 
 For mind growth hath eternal powers, 
 
 And will develop as it towers 
 
 To heights supreme, in something new, 
 
 And then the elements we view 
 
 To-day around us, may disclose 
 
 The beautiful, beyond all those 
 
 Effects that e'er before was seen 
 
 And not as much of God will screen, 
 
 In the invisible display, 
 
 Of what the air contains to-day, 
 
 But will rejoice by what we know 
 
 The air contains while here below, 
 
 For us to gather and unite 
 
 Besides the element of light, 
 
 That has been found within this age, 
 
 Until they solved the question quite 
 
 That came forth in electric light, 
 
 The coarsest element in air 
 
 That is invisible everywhere; 
 
 Which first in strivings we have touched, 
 
 And we have found this helped us much; 
 
 So we more beauteous things will find 
 
 In onward searchings for the mind; 
 

 56 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Producing ecstasies of bliss 
 And making joys of heaven in this 
 World, which has the air around, 
 Containing all that has been found, 
 In any heaven far above 
 Existing in supremest love; 
 Because the mind has grown to see 
 And to discover what may be 
 Within the elements of God; 
 That fills all spaces ever trod 
 By angel feet or great mind powers. 
 
 MORE OF THE AIR. 
 
 WHERE do the colors of the flowers 
 That they instinctively do trace 
 From Nature's secret hiding place, 
 In feeling out for and selects, 
 That which its loveliness protects, 
 As well as all the blossom sweets, 
 Their life from out the air completes; 
 For this the orchid flower explains, 
 That always in the air remains; 
 All its beauty comes from there, 
 It all is found within the air; 
 That which it draws to form the leaves 
 And stem and flowers — its life perceives; 
 And reaches by the thought of love, 
 And builds it, one, on one, above, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 57 
 
 Until it has a form complete, 
 
 And shows what it has found so sweet, 
 
 Out of the atoms found in air, 
 
 Its life selected everywhere; 
 
 Out of the air to form the flower 
 
 When moved by its life giving power. 
 
 The air contains all we behold, 
 
 And much and more ten thousand fold, 
 
 It holds in its solution rare, 
 
 Unknown to us, we call it air, 
 
 As if that did it well express, 
 
 In finding more or something less. 
 
 You say it gets it from the sun 
 
 Its beauteous colors every one. 
 
 Then doth the rainbow get its hues ? 
 
 With air vibrations as some views 
 
 Have been advanced, if it were so 
 
 The air is filled with this we know, 
 
 Is filled with all the colors fine 
 
 That e'er can be, or may combine 
 
 In the expression of a flower; 
 
 And mingle with the richest dower 
 
 Of all the air is said to be 
 
 That is unknown to you or me. 
 
 The air holds all there is in space, 
 
 Or we a difference could trace 
 
 In the components of its parts; 
 
 As earth in revolution starts 
 
 And sweeps the distant boundaries where 
 
 There would be change within our air; 
 
58 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 If something different should unite 
 With it, to change its nature quite. 
 It loses nothing we can see 
 Or gains for life, so it must be, 
 It finds in all the distant fields 
 Of spaces wherein its orbit wheels, 
 The same existing life, to fill 
 The atmosphere, with forces still, 
 The same as what it had before 
 It went its orbit o'er and o'er; 
 Our atmosphere would lose or gain 
 Unless through space, all was the same, 
 Filled with life giving forces where 
 It kept supplied our atmosphere 
 With elements of life to gain, 
 And air kept filled with life the same; 
 But differently it well may be 
 Proportioned in what we could see, 
 Outside of the surrounding air, 
 That earth had for her atmosphere. 
 That earth attracts like living things, 
 What her selections to her brings; 
 And reaches out as doth the flowers, 
 In life exhibiting their powers, 
 To draw and to select their own; 
 That which it loves — a life is known, 
 To build up different forms to be 
 Expressed in different shapes, we see 
 Of life, that all creation fills, 
 Expressing each their different wills; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 59 
 
 Their needs, they find within the air 
 From all combined within it there; 
 The germ, that shape and form unfold 
 Within the earth, the air must hold, 
 For up it troops into the light 
 And gathers from the air, the right 
 Of what it needs, to thus express 
 Its leaves and flowers of loveliness. 
 
 THE FIRST DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE ON 
 PLANETS. • 
 
 THE new fresh earth turned to the air, 
 Is kissed by dews that fall from there; 
 And elements in rays of sun 
 And rain, before a growth begun. 
 And new forms rise, no seed is sown 
 Unless from air its germ has flown, 
 Into the earth, that kissed by sun 
 And dew and rain its life begun; 
 We know the raindrop fell from air, 
 Has many life germs in it there, 
 When with the microscope we see 
 The millions of variety; 
 And if life gathers for its need 
 Out of the air when burst, from seed, 
 Then air must be its native home. 
 And have all in it which has grown 
 Upon that form to clothe its need 
 Besides the germ within the seed; 
 
60 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Then air must everywhere enfold 
 
 The elements that bodies hold; 
 
 Which they in changing growth expel, 
 
 And new materials draw as well. 
 
 And in new Islands of the sea 
 
 Could life thus spring up first to be ? 
 
 Some coral island far from view, 
 
 In mid-seas with life creatures new ? 
 
 That must have sprung to being there 
 
 Out of the kisses of the air, 
 
 That touched those island lands so free ? 
 
 That coral builders of the sea, 
 
 Assisted by the mud and shells 
 
 Packed into them by ocean swells, 
 
 Had made with all their beauty rare, 
 
 Land, trees, and flowers, not anywhere, 
 
 But where enrooted they had sprung 
 
 Up into being new and young ? 
 
 Did those life germs come from the air 
 
 And elements in earth repair ? 
 
 Or those germs of all life, come 
 
 From the sun rays new begun 
 
 All that atoms held within 
 
 As conditions to outbring ? 
 
 All the species found are there 
 
 Come from life germs in the air 
 
 As conditions of their love 
 
 Reaching it from life above ? 
 
 Did they in the dewdrop fall 
 
 Or the raindrop have germs of all 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 6l 
 
 That upon that island rested, 
 
 In its virgin soil, — divested 
 
 Of all seed that could be sown 
 
 Or from other lands have blown ? 
 
 Such the air contains we know 
 
 Germs of all things here below; 
 
 For they rise in air and mist 
 
 From the forms that do exist; 
 
 Vegetable or animal, 
 
 Fills the air, all they contain 
 
 From their bodies, thoughts and brain. 
 
 Atom germs they all express 
 
 Are exhaled, for new are dressed. 
 
 Constantly every hour in living, 
 
 To surroundings we are giving, 
 
 We are knowing, or the rose 
 
 From the seed could not disclose, 
 
 All that atom rose contained; 
 
 As it swelled with sun and rain, 
 
 To a larger rose tree there 
 
 Clothed with beauty from the air, 
 
 Stem and leaf, then bud and flower 
 
 By the life within of power; 
 
 Moving it to thus disclose 
 
 The invisible the rose, 
 
 By its garments atom made 
 
 That within the air had stayed, 
 
 Until its beauty so supreme, 
 
 From the air did pick and gleam 
 
62 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Atoms, that the body made 
 
 And the physical displayed, 
 
 By the clothing that it drew, 
 
 Brought the invisible to view. 
 
 So with every other grade 
 
 Of life, that has existance made; 
 
 Every creature that has been 
 
 From the lowest up to men; 
 
 For one law for all must be 
 
 In the growth of all we see; 
 
 Modes are used to bring about 
 
 God's expressive meanings out; 
 
 And the wondrous air must hold 
 
 All there has been new or old; 
 
 By developements extreme 
 
 In some thought directions seen. 
 
 Some imperfect growth has found 
 
 In material to disclose 
 
 Consciousness, was life's purpose, — 
 
 That in time it would attain 
 
 Through its pleasure and its pain, 
 
 All that living for us gain, 
 
 In the purpose of its life, 
 
 Rising out of growth and strife, 
 
 That the pristine growth would be 
 
 Strugglings for identity. 
 
 And the selfishness must grow 
 
 To survive its life we know; 
 
 So upon the lowest plane 
 
 Life its first expressions gain; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 6$ 
 
 Selfish forms, thus first were seen 
 
 Growing out in great extreme. 
 
 Isles that life growth first was winning 
 
 To its bosom life's beginning. 
 
 God is present everywhere 
 
 In the earth, the sea and air; 
 
 So from God all life was made, 
 
 Through conditions every grade; 
 
 And from Him our life doth draw, 
 
 Through the life growth and its law; 
 
 For is God not everywhere 
 
 In the spaces and the air ? 
 
 Where the elements doth hold 
 
 All the life germs that unfold ? 
 
 How wondrous then must be the air, 
 
 Even the frost work everywhere 
 
 Imprinted where its touch is made 
 
 Shapes in forms of every grade 
 
 As they naturally combine, 
 
 Again in shape they did entwine. 
 
 For air congealed, shows leaves and flowers, 
 
 And trees and lands and city towers, 
 
 In which materials have been made 
 
 That the mind thought has displayed. 
 
 Leaving it to crumble — where 
 
 All becomes again the air, 
 
 Shapes in air resemble us — 
 
 Photographs, or mirrors must 
 
 Demonstrate this fact to be, 
 
 Moved by light so us you see. 
 
64 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 It is not us — but it is then 
 The forms of us that doth extend 
 By marvelous power contained in light; 
 Light is in the air so bright 
 To reproduce ourselves again, 
 And picture o'er where we have been; 
 All this is wondrous power of air, 
 What is within it everywhere. 
 And may be we can read again, 
 Upon this book of Nature when 
 We clearer see with spirit eyes, 
 What will us very much surprise; 
 What is reflected on the night, 
 May be revealed again by light; 
 The silvery fore-ground doth reveal 
 Our mirrored self, that doth conceal 
 In Nature, only as we go 
 Before the mirror glass, we know. 
 And so upon deep Nature's night, 
 All may reveal within its light. 
 What we have been, or were before, 
 May be repeated o'er and o'er, 
 In the vibrations of all time, 
 Throughout all worlds to the sublime. 
 So let us live if this is known, 
 So we can feel to claim our own; 
 And know we lived the best we knew 
 In this far reaching pristine view. 
 If we should meet it may it tell 
 We lived our best, and lived it well, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 65 
 
 If nothing can be ever lost, 
 
 These life scenes we again may cross; 
 
 If everything reflects in space, 
 
 All things may thus have room and place, 
 
 And in the elements combine 
 
 As fruits of our primeval mind. 
 
 If thoughts are things they help to build 
 
 Our book of life with pages filled; 
 
 This book of Nature that may throw, 
 
 The mirage of our life below 
 
 Upon the camera of time, 
 
 And if the good the bad outshine, 
 
 This darkened background may help show 
 
 Our better deeds with shining glow; 
 
 And so the picture may be given, 
 
 Of life work better seen in heaven. 
 
 But let it be so that the night 
 
 Of deeds, may be obscured by light, 
 
 That will reflect from good deeds done, 
 
 As night dispels from rays of sun. 
 
 COMPREHENSION OF TIME AND DISTANCE. 
 
 TWO cities might be miles apart 
 That from a certain point would start; 
 And reckoned so by that between 
 The two — the mile posts that were seen. 
 But were both cities blotted out, 
 And mile posts we should do without 
 
 F 
 
66 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 The distance 'twixt them — still would lie, 
 
 That you had no way to espy. 
 
 So distance that we comprehend, 
 
 In space, would still itself extend 
 
 If every thing within it there, 
 
 Were blotted out — the worlds so fair; 
 
 Then distance is that something seen 
 
 Beside the worlds that come between; 
 
 That something by "All Presence " known, 
 
 The distance, space — within all grown ; 
 
 Filled with attraction — its all source 
 
 And that is Love — attraction force. 
 
 There would be something we call tim.e 
 
 From youth to that of age sublime; 
 
 A distance if no years had flown — 
 
 The marks by which the time is known; 
 
 By comprehension time is seen, 
 
 If years should never come between — 
 
 They are the periods of time, 
 
 Marks made by us, that we combine; 
 
 And so the distance of the spheres, — 
 
 The space between, we call the years; 
 
 The time that takes each one to go, 
 
 So much of space — we reckon so; 
 
 But time and distance would be still 
 
 If periods were not there to fill. 
 
 What is this time and distance there ? 
 
 It is "All Presence " everywhere. 
 
 A something that we comprehend, 
 
 That farthest distances extend; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 67 
 
 We only can this presence see 
 
 Of time and distance that must be, 
 
 By what we comprehend with mind 
 
 A something which we call the time; 
 
 But if no years were anywhere, 
 
 This presence-time would still be there; 
 
 The space and time it takes to go, 
 
 From one unto the other, so 
 
 If 'twas not marked by us or seen, 
 
 The distance would be there between. 
 
 All Presence — distance we will call, 
 
 Filled with all life throughout it all; 
 
 And its attractive moving force 
 
 Is Love — mind sentiment — and source 
 
 That " Ever Presence " seems to fill, 
 
 Revolving words around it still. 
 
 Is it parental love that draws 
 
 All things toward u All Seeing Cause ? " 
 
 For parent love binds all that live — 
 
 Inherent, we to offspring give. 
 
 This fills immensity with mind; 
 
 Love is attractive law to bind 
 
 All, in one universe, embrace; 
 
 Attraction filling every place; 
 
 And cause the one great moving force 
 
 That draws all systems round its Source. 
 
68 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 WORLDS. THEIR CAUSE OF ORBIT MOTION. 
 
 SPACE is full of substance moving, 
 Or distance would not space be proving; 
 A sun in space revolves around 
 And elements in which it turns 
 Move around the heat that central burns. 
 Then worlds within space will of course 
 Go around this same attractive force. 
 As whirlpools carry all around 
 The bodies that therein are found; 
 Thus they have orbits 'round the sun, — 
 A spirit or material one; 
 No matter what the force that draws, 
 An orbit motion it will cause, 
 With all the things that form in space 
 The small and great in every place; 
 Will in the elements go 'round 
 The central force as far as bound 
 By an attractive force, that draws, — 
 An orbit motion it will cause, 
 Of star dust, meteors, or asteroids, 
 All go around — there is no void; 
 All in moving motion, whirls 
 Around the sun within space, — worlds 
 Are going in their orbits too 
 With elements unseen to view. 
 As far as earth's attraction runs 
 She draws the moon — as does the suns 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 69 
 
 Around their revolution force 
 Upon their axis, — is the course, 
 That everything attraction draws, 
 Move around that force and is the cause 
 That those the nearest swifter move, 
 And slower farthest off will prove. 
 
 ELLIPTICAL ORBITS. 
 
 WHY worlds in elliptical orbits move, 
 This law electrical* will prove; 
 Two worlds unequal you will see 
 In their electrical identity; 
 Toward the larger, one will draw, 
 In orbit line through this same law; 
 In perihelion — they become 
 Equally electrified as one; 
 They then repel and onward speed, 
 The one that sun, or earth, thus feed, 
 And on in orbit speeding yet 
 To apohelion — losing it; 
 Unequalized, thus as before, 
 Repeats its orbit o'er and o'er. 
 And thus the planets round the sun, 
 Elliptical, in orbits run; 
 Or moon around the earth will bring; 
 The same law moves in everything, 
 
 *" There is a principle in philosophy — That two balls unequally electrified, the 
 stronger will attract the weaker towards it, when imparting their superabundence 
 to the other, they become equally electrified they will again repel." — Comstock 's 
 Standard Works. 
 
70 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 'Till assimilating they repel, — the cause, 
 
 Electrical attraction draws; 
 
 That positive and negative, must combine 
 
 To keep in union powers of mind; 
 
 For if both positives become, 
 
 Or both are negatives in one, 
 
 They will repel — 'till losing it, 
 
 Will then draw towards, as opposites; 
 
 But if two mind-powers would unite 
 
 In harmony forever right, 
 
 They must be opposites of mind, 
 
 Natural in temperament all the time. 
 
 As male and female force become, 
 
 A dual atom — two in one. 
 
 FORMATION OF WORLD LIFE. 
 
 BY aggregation earth has grown, 
 From the small meteoric stone, 
 The stone had elements complete, 
 Which would produce spontaneous heat; 
 Surrounded by the depths of earth, 
 The central force of planets birth, 
 Of motion, — when its central force 
 Created a revolution course; 
 What is the meteoric stone ? 
 Its properties combined as known, 
 Are iron, sulpher, rock completing, 
 Moisture naturally secreting; 
 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 7 1 
 
 Experiments of " Prof. Lemier, " * 
 In the sixteenth century year, 
 Upon what caused volcarroes — found, 
 That iron filings, sulphur, ground 
 And water, covered o'er with dirt, 
 Would spontaneous heat, itself convert. 
 The pressure of the world would grind 
 Its central properties combined 
 And moisture that the rocks secrete. 
 So from this center earth has grown 
 And buried the meteoric stone; 
 Which has those properties composed, 
 Of iron, sulphur, all of those, 
 That would spontaneous heat produce; 
 And central heat made by its use; 
 The heat would melt the mineral all 
 And form a central liquid ball; 
 From the specific gravity 
 More in minerals tend to be; 
 Which draw towards the center all 
 And forms a melted mineral ball; 
 And central heat — around will flow 
 The cooler particles we know; 
 And lava formed from melted stone 
 Outward toward the surface thrown. 
 At the equator, with the sun 
 Life growth, was there the first begun. 
 
 *"A scientist of the sixteenth century, a Frenchman. In his experiments 
 searching after the cause that produced volcanoes, found that iron filings, and sulphur 
 and moisture, covered with earth produced spontaneous heat." — Laws of Heat, 
 
72 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And polar electricity toward center draws 
 And meeting, more of heat would cause, 
 As two polars meet, to magnetism turns, 
 Like arc lights causes heat that burns, 
 And electricity's natural course, 
 Revolves around, a circular force. 
 Thus planets motion I am solving, 
 By its electricity revolving. 
 All these forces do combine, 
 That earth's revolving motion find; 
 Gives the life motion of a world, 
 When on its axis it is whirled. 
 
 ORBIT MOTION GATHERS ELECTRICITY. 
 
 ITS belt of orbit motion runs 
 So swift in motion round the sun; 
 This motion generates thus from space, 
 Electricity from every place, 
 As the dynamo motion, where 
 It picks electricity from the air, 
 Its orbit is so swift through space 
 This motion attracts from every place; 
 This motion for its use would be 
 For motion gathers electricity. 
 And toward the planet comes this force 
 That equalizes this swift course 
 Unknown to us, we do not feel 
 The swift motion, that in orbits wheel; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 73 
 
 A law so provident to us, 
 Motion so swift without it, must, 
 If moving contrary to the currents find 
 Our atmosphere streaming out behind; 
 As comets with their light will shine; 
 Attraction draws them toward the sun, 
 As meteors to the earth will come, 
 And whirling in magnetic stream 
 Around the sun, they come between 
 Us and the sun's electric light, 
 Within its atmosphere so bright. 
 And cause the spots we on it see 
 As transit of Venus seems to be; 
 They bring in elements of star — 
 The sun rays from those spaces far, 
 As water goes in mist, — and rain 
 Returns unto the earth again. 
 The lightning is a ball we know 
 If it were only moving slow, 
 It makes a hole just as a ball 
 Would pierce its way if seen at all. 
 If lightning electricity could be seen, 
 It would be round and not a stream. 
 What is a cyclone? could you see 
 Its center of electricity, 
 Then you would see the whirling force, 
 Of electricity's natural course. 
 As with the earth it whirls around 
 From polar to the center bound. 
 For electricity's natural course 
 
74 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Is 'round and 'round as axis force. 
 
 At positive poles, to central flows, 
 
 And meeting in magnetism that outward goes 
 
 Unto the surface, formed in heat, 
 
 And constantly this force repeat, 
 
 At the equator with the sun, 
 
 Which cause the growth there first begun. 
 
 For planets grew, as others grow, 
 
 From small to larger worlds we know; 
 
 From meteoric stones in space, 
 
 They grew to find a planet's place. 
 
 So far from other worlds they grow 
 
 That not attracted they will so 
 
 Assume their life, as larger grown, 
 
 That they can self protect their own. 
 
 We'll talk of this more by and by 
 
 But first we would the sun espy. 
 
 INFANT SUNS. 
 
 WHERE the electric substance fill 
 Spaces and distance as it will; 
 Bodies could be attracted there 
 As stones that fall from out our air 
 Begin from elements to combine 
 As meteors which we find, 
 Doth centralize in fields of air; 
 So gases would in spaces where 
 Suns began, and threw their light 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 75 
 
 Through all the fields of space so bright; 
 
 When they to larger bodies grew 
 
 For us to see their brightening view; 
 
 Begins to form electric — cold, 
 
 And all of energy they hold; 
 
 And as they larger do become, 
 
 The greater motion have each one; 
 
 By motion is attracted more, 
 
 Just as we told you heretofore 
 
 That electricity is found 
 
 And gathered, by swift motion 'round, 
 
 And larger 'round would they become 
 
 Until they grew to be a sun. 
 
 Revolving motion is the love 
 
 That electricity doth move, 
 
 And this around and 'round would whirl, 
 
 Upon an axis such a world, 
 
 That had itself an energy 
 
 Of substance like electricity, 
 
 And make for all electric light, 
 
 A sun in space shining so bright; 
 
 Suns would not grow when equal threw, 
 
 Its sunlight out, as fast as new 
 
 Electricity it did attract; 
 
 As their life motion now suns doth act; 
 
 Or after its limit growth it knew, 
 
 (As about twenty 'tis so with you;) 
 
 For suns are living bodies too, 
 
 Like every life, in me or you, 
 
 Or life that does not breathe, will grow, 
 
76 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And only the involuntary action show; 
 
 But when life breathing motion, more 
 
 Adds to its power not had before; 
 
 The voluntary then is seen 
 
 With the involuntary to gleam, — 
 
 In thought perception higher still, — 
 
 The animated life and will 
 
 Is manifested, as you see, 
 
 With air, and mind in chemistry; 
 
 The spiritual that the air contains, 
 
 Where oxygen in it remains. 
 
 Suns throw off their substance there, 
 
 Creating their illumined air; 
 
 The sun would cease its growth to make 
 
 After it gained illumined state; 
 
 For rays thrown off would equalize 
 
 The gathering process, otherwise; 
 
 It throws its rays in space afar, 
 
 To every planetary star; 
 
 And its magnetic central heat, 
 
 Created where the forces meet, 
 
 Are full of atoms, — forces made 
 
 Up of life germs of every grade, 
 
 Electrical those atoms are 
 
 That fill the sun-rays to earth-star, 
 
 Gone out of it in force of love, 
 
 That draws all life to sun above; 
 
 That starts on planets — hidden force 
 
 Of atom life, — the sun its source; 
 
 On the earth surface to create 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 77 
 
 Their first luxuriant growing state, 
 For bud and bloom must have the light 
 To perfect blossom, if it grows, 
 All true observers this well know. 
 And electricity is a thing, — 
 A substance unseen, to bring 
 Atoms in its composition, — 
 The force invisible for transition, 
 Of germs into the living forms, 
 That doth earth's surface so adorn; 
 These unit atoms central draw, 
 With energy, though called a law; 
 And such its nature in material; 
 A central force they hold ethereal; 
 And magnetism of the sun 
 Is kindred with us, every one; 
 It held us in pre-natal birth, 
 It is our parent — sun with earth. 
 
 THEIR LAW OF MOTION. 
 
 THE suns must form in distant space 
 When not attracted from their place, 
 Would larger grow to be a sun, 
 When its electric light begun 
 To shine in space, a world you see 
 Composed of electricity. 
 The north and south electric lode 
 Meet in the center and explode; 
 
78 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Creates the electric light that burns 
 
 Where electricity to magnetism turns; 
 
 Makes its illumined air of surrounding space 
 
 The great electric sun in space; 
 
 And its swift motion attracting more 
 
 From Mother Nature's surrounding store, 
 
 As fast as it expended light 
 
 Into far space — surrounding night, 
 
 Tis central held by planet law 
 
 That in surrounding orbits draw; 
 
 And on an axis 'round would whirl 
 
 By the same law that turns a world. 
 
 Electricity, the polar force, 
 
 Circles 'round its natural course; 
 
 To magnetism in the center turns, 
 
 And heat-producing central burns. 
 
 And swifter far would turn a sun 
 
 Because 'twas spiritual begun; 
 
 It is an element of life, 
 
 And naught impedes its motion rife; 
 
 Electricity makes light in any place, 
 
 When generated in a ball, 
 
 As lightning shows unto us all 
 
 A light that represents the sun 
 
 And in a vacuum will become 
 
 A light, so 'tis its nature where 
 
 In space it burns without our air, 
 
 And gives a light as does our sun, 
 
 Which shows that electricity is one 
 
 Of the suns, properties begun; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 79 
 
 As arc-light, where two polars meet 
 
 Doth the electric light complete; 
 
 An electric and magnetic ball, 
 
 As one into the other turns, 
 
 Creates the central heat that burns; 
 
 As it throws off its substance there, 
 
 Creating its illumined air; 
 
 The sun one great electric light, 
 
 Whose motion gathers it from night 
 
 Of space, where all is circling 'round, 
 
 Full of electric forces found. 
 
 Such is the body of the sun, 
 
 Instead of a material one. 
 
 In worlds of energy unseen, 
 
 Electric lights these spaces gleam; 
 
 'Tis only their illumined air 
 
 We see surrounding them so fair; 
 
 That to us shapes their bodies round, 
 
 As gas, unseen, the jets surround, 
 
 With light, a distance from them the phase, 
 
 Creating their illumined blaze. 
 
 Bodies could be attracted there, 
 
 As well as meteors in our air, 
 
 To larger grow, revolve and act, 
 
 If larger bodies do not attract 
 
 Them away from where they are, 
 
 They grow to be a sun or star; 
 
 The same in far-off spaces, where 
 
 The sun exists without our air; 
 
 And generates itself, you see, 
 
8o THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 As meteoric stones must be, 
 
 That have the property of earth, 
 
 And are a world of infant birth. 
 
 So infant suns may grow this way, 
 
 As balls of electricity to-day 
 
 That greater bodies to them draw, 
 
 As earth, in meteoric law; 
 
 The greater bodies lesser — (know) 
 
 Attract, and lesser cannot grow 
 
 To be a world or sun in space; 
 
 For all is filled and have their place, 
 
 But organization is a law 
 
 And worlds these lesser bodies draw; 
 
 As it is natural to combine 
 
 Elements in space we ever find; 
 
 From water drops that fall through space, 
 
 In feathery stars, this law will place 
 
 The particles to so combine; 
 
 And drops in miniature we find 
 
 Of worlds — as it a bubble floats 
 
 Out into space, this law promotes 
 
 Some shape, is forming through this law; 
 
 In balls, all drops of liquid draw; 
 
 Electric balls in space unite 
 
 With motion natural to light; 
 
 And larger grow to be a sun, 
 
 The same as a material one, 
 
 Will grow from meteors to be; 
 
 As asteroids your glasses see, 
 
 Have grown since " Jupiter " did show, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 8l 
 
 With telescope, itself, you know. 
 
 And so at first began a sun, 
 
 Revolving motion it begun 
 
 Because it is natural so to move, 
 
 Electric motions this doth prove; 
 
 And motion 'round attracted more, 
 
 Still growing larger than before; 
 
 Just with its ifcpid motion fed 
 
 Itself from space, which shows instead 
 
 Of wasting it increases more 
 
 By motion gathering as before 
 
 It is electricity we see 
 
 The substance feeding it to burn 
 
 That it attracts by axis turn; 
 
 And so it feeds itself to-day 
 
 With electricity the same way; 
 
 And why its body we can see 
 
 Is its surrounding light that we 
 
 Observe that ever shapes the sun, 
 
 And spots are bodies that have come 
 
 Between us and itself to screen 
 
 The light as they are often seen; 
 
 We call them spots upon the sun, 
 
 As Venus' transit seems to one, 
 
 So electricity is found 
 
 By motion of revolving round. 
 
 This motion is its natural law, 
 
 While heat and light in straight lines draw, 
 
 So outward toward the surface flows, 
 
 At the equator heat straight goes. 
 
82 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 CONDITIONS FOR LIFE ON THE EARTH'S 
 SURFACE. 
 
 AND with direct rays of the sun 
 The planets' surface there becomes 
 Fitted for life growth to appear, 
 Which thus attracts its atmosphere; 
 In life's selections reaching forth 
 To gather to it needed worth 
 That to the planet's body draw 
 Full of life germs a common law; 
 What growth expels the air is full 
 And for their needs they constant pull 
 Toward the planet out of space 
 And every thing their bodies grace; 
 But ere this stage of being grew 
 The planet's life, the water drew; 
 Reaching for elements of its kind, 
 Whose unity is water's freak, 
 And rocks this element secretes; 
 And moisture of the atmosphere, 
 Before life germs on earth were here; 
 Life forms that doth in water live, 
 These germs did to the planet give 
 The life forms first that water hold 
 So many varied and untold. 
 The germs that higher forms express 
 In self-growth to more loveliness; 
 What bodies need for their repair 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 83 
 
 The life of growth attracts them there; 
 And so the space around the world 
 Is full of what its growth unfurls. 
 All bodies thus have atmosphere 
 Containing what their life and sphere 
 Attracts to them, — what they expel, 
 Or draw to them, surroundings tell; 
 And so a world attracts around 
 Life germs, all substance on it found; 
 And this is full, as doth appear, 
 Unorganized, in atmosphere. 
 
 ATMOSPHERE PRODUCES HEAT. 
 
 WHERE growth is most prolific, there 
 It has a greater, deeper air, 
 And heat produces from the sun, 
 As valleys full of growth become; 
 While on the mountain top is snow, 
 The air is thinner there, we know. 
 This law applies to every one 
 Of planets, moving 'round the sun, 
 At Mercury, nearest sun, the air is thin 
 Around the planet, to begin; 
 And deeper grows around each one; 
 The farther distant they become; 
 This law gives heat to all alike, 
 So beautiful it is and right. 
 
84 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 HEAT AND LIGHT ON ALL WORLDS. 
 
 NATURE," so provident for need, 
 Cares so protecting for her seed; 
 And growth increases air around; 
 Proportioned to the distance found 
 From sun, and all get heat as you, 
 And light, and sun, and air, and dew. 
 As well protected is the one 
 That moves the nearest to the sun, 
 Whose atmosphere is thin and rare, 
 So heat would not as much be there, 
 As those in distant spaces where 
 Their growth makes deeper atmosphere, 
 Get as much light and heat as here; 
 The sun-glass demonstrates this law, 
 The focused rays more light .will draw, 
 So atmosphere encircling 'round; 
 The laws of growth have made profound; 
 To give all worlds their heat and light; 
 Their atmosphere to make this right, 
 And thus our praises will arise 
 To God, in this new thought surprise. 
 You know a law of life is there, 
 All present pulsing everywhere, 
 That atmosphere, combined with sun, 
 Proportions heat on every one; 
 And worlds the nearest suns are found 
 With atmosphere the least around; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 85 
 
 And those the farthest, having more, 
 Combines more heat as told before. 
 In valleys greater heat is there 
 Than heights where atmosphere is rare; 
 This law gives heat on everyone, 
 Compared to depths of air, with sun. 
 
 MORE ABOUT ORBITS AND WORLDS. 
 
 THE atmosphere around the world 
 Is moving with his axis whirl; 
 And out in space doth also draw 
 As far as its attraction law; 
 The elements move 'round the world, 
 And bodies in it 'round are whirled; 
 By this the moon doth 'round earth draw, 
 In orbit of revolving law, 
 But being so very far away 
 She moves it slowly in this way, 
 But earth's attraction must there go, 
 To make the tides that ebb and flow; 
 As far as earth's attraction goes 
 The elements around it flows. 
 This makes the orbits of each one, 
 The moon and planets, 'round the sun. 
 For space is full there is no void 
 From star, to sun, and asteroid. 
 It has a different proportion, 
 Of some things near the planets motion; 
 
S6 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Because the atoms gather there 
 
 That growth attracts within the air; 
 
 More of material in proportion 
 
 Than far away from planets motion; 
 
 More for material growth we find 
 
 Mingled with that which feeds the mind; 
 
 Beyond this atmosphere are uses 
 
 Of elements that mind produces; 
 
 That feeds the mind with quicker thought, 
 
 Than mind and matter both enwrought; 
 
 That are the properties of air; 
 
 You know there are invisible forces, 
 
 That feed the mind, in air it courses. 
 
 The oxygen deprived from air 
 
 Or something associated with it there 
 
 Unconscious, we at once become; 
 
 So spirit feeds the mind, each one — 
 
 And outside of this air we know, 
 
 Such spirit forces surely flow, 
 
 That our life motion will inhale 
 
 When we have left material veil. 
 
 ATMOSPHERIC LAW. 
 
 DIRECT rays of sun with air 
 On the earth's surface mingling there, 
 Produces heat upon the earth 
 And light in properties of worth. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 87 
 
 Atoms attract from out all space 
 Toward a central force or place, 
 That does in love those atoms draw 
 And this is atmospheric law; 
 As they this loving impulse feel, 
 A hidden force they do reveal. 
 Space is filled around the earth, 
 With atoms that on it have birth; 
 This deepens where the most doth grow 
 As 'round the torrid zone we know; 
 The waste of all material mould 
 Where atoms new replace the old, 
 Make atmosphere around it more, 
 Than what had been there before. 
 That reaches out for what it needs, 
 And all life growth upon air feeds; 
 Thus air from space to earth is bound 
 A similar substance moving 'round, 
 With planet motion, through the love 
 That life growth has for that above; 
 Differently proportioned as to place — 
 More atoms than outside in space; — 
 Atoms of the material kind 
 Which is the atmosphere combined, 
 Producing cold, where it is rare, 
 And heat where thicker is the air; 
 As on the mountain top is snow, 
 And flowers and fruit in vales, below, 
 Gradating towards the temperate zone, 
 Where so much lesser life has grown; 
 
88 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And fla tened at the poles is seen 
 The earth, in shape, from this I glean. 
 
 WHY THE EARTH IS FLATTENED AT THE 
 POLES. 
 
 A knowledge from this fact to show, 
 The worlds where life upon them grow; 
 Is builded larger round the zone, 
 Where great luxuriant life has grown; 
 And nothing grown around the poles 
 The earth or world would flattened be, 
 In that locality, you see; 
 In building up ten thousand years 
 Of time, and growing of the spheres; 
 Nearer the equator everywhere; 
 The earth grows faster, larger there; 
 For it attracts so much from space, — 
 Its luxuriant growth repeating, place 
 So much upon its surface there, 
 That earth grows faster larger there. 
 
 WHY THE MOON IS NOT AN OLD PLANET. 
 
 A world cannot be old and dead, 
 Unless it had this shape instead 
 Of round, as what we see the moon; — 
 An infant world not yet in bloom; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 89 
 
 In shape the moon is seen to be; 
 
 Instead of old and dead to thee; 
 
 For 'twould be flattened at the poles, 
 
 If 'twas a world that had grown old; 
 
 From this we reason, where growth had been 
 
 Depression at the poles, — is then; 
 
 But it has not commenced to draw 
 
 To it much atmosphere — Growth law, 
 
 And growth if any cannot be 
 
 Where atmosphere is thin you see 
 
 Except in water germs may there 
 
 Be growing for they need not air, 
 
 Oxygen and hydrogen gas unite 
 
 And turn to water sparkling bright, 
 
 And form constituents of air, 
 
 Around the planets surface rare. 
 
 WORLD MOTION GATHERS ELECTRICITY. 
 
 THE dynamo of electric power 
 Sets wheels in motion in the air 
 And electricity gathers there. 
 So the results of planet motion, 
 Swift in their orbits of commotion, 
 Draws the electricity from space 
 And cause their motion which we trace; 
 That planets are moving swift in space, 
 In belt of orbit as we place 
 The distance so extreme to go 
 In every minute's time we know 
 
00 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Would attract from out the spaces 
 Electricity, and all the phases 
 Of its axis motion, then 
 Revolve around as it has been 
 Doing, by a cause unknown, 
 Ere this reason it were shown; 
 Why upon their axes 'round 
 Worlds are turning it is found 
 That electricity has this motion, 
 And will produce just this commotion, 
 In planetary systems where 
 It fills all moving bodies there. 
 The polar electricity's will meet, 
 And in the center create heat; 
 They soon revolve, begin to turn, 
 When heat within their center burn. 
 Asteroids revolve we see, 
 Their orbits swift attract as we; 
 As electric to magnetic turn, 
 The heat is made to central burn; 
 And elements within it there, 
 Spontaneous heat makes lava there 
 Revolve around the cooler parts 
 As liquids, when heat motion starts; 
 Revolve around the central heat, 
 That air or liquids will complete. 
 And nothing resists the planets turn, 
 Suspended in space as we can learn. 
 So causes, thus turn 'round a world, 
 That on an axis starts to whirl; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 91 
 
 With its life motion so complete 
 Continuing on to more repeat. 
 And the material there within 
 Unites in melted ore so thin 
 Its substance flows like water 'round 
 Where central heat to lava melts. 
 The poles are positive, cold is there, 
 But turns to heat in center where, 
 From the center outward flows, 
 The heat unto the surface goes, 
 At the equator all around 
 And surface heat was first thus found. 
 Central heat was first created 
 With these different powers related; 
 Combined with elements unknown 
 Found in the meteoric stone, 
 Where first its infant life begun, 
 For planets grow this way each one. 
 Those elements now have their use 
 Spontaneous heat to more produce; 
 To make a living body when 
 It larger grew and life extend. 
 The north and south electric lode 
 Meet in the center and explode, 
 Because repellent are their motion 
 And heat results from this commotion 
 Within the growing planet, where 
 Their surface growth attracts the air. 
 And electricity toward earth draws 
 From the orbit motion, cause 
 
92 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 This force toward the planet, hold 
 
 All that around the earth enfold. 
 
 If sun is kindred to the earth, 
 
 In direct rays to give the birth 
 
 Of germ life, that its rays doth hold, 
 
 And 'round the torrid zone enfold; 
 
 To leap from Nature's hiding places, 
 
 Up into air and life's sweet graces, 
 
 In pristine earth's unfoldment shown 
 
 Where great luxurient life is grown; 
 
 Does not the earth its polar draw 
 
 From the north star through love and law ? 
 
 Electricity so cold, 
 
 That makes it positive at the pole; 
 
 Direct in course from north it comes 
 
 From polar star so there becomes 
 
 Sometimes the brilliant northern lights, 
 
 Producing phenomena and sights, 
 
 That electricity is known 
 
 To be the same at frigid zone; 
 
 And with the earth this positive pole 
 
 Influences motion circling 'round 
 
 The course that electricity is bound, 
 
 And also magnetism thus turns; 
 
 And both these motions well affirm, 
 
 Would move a world no other cause, 
 
 Can be more plain for motion laws; 
 
 That planetary life assumes, 
 
 The sun and stars that space illumes 
 
 If sun is magetism to the earth, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 93 
 
 In direct rays to give the birth, 
 Of germ life that the sun doth hold 
 And on earth's surface 'round enfold; 
 That troop from Nature's hiding places 
 Up into light and life's sweet graces; 
 Doth not the poles from north star draw 
 Electricity through similar law, 
 This electricity producing cold 
 That 'round the frigid zone enfold ? 
 And turns the world around, around, 
 That electricity is natural bound 
 To curve in motion — while the sun 
 Throws rays in straight lines, every one ? 
 Of different elements we see 
 Are sun rays from electricity; 
 Something associated with it 
 That will not its supremacy permit, 
 For one through glass will pass as well; 
 The other from it will repel; 
 And so the north star may be made 
 Of electricity's positive grade 
 Of elements that fill the pole, 
 A positive element and cold; 
 While the direct line of the sun, 
 Upon the torrid zone is one 
 Of many causes heat is found, 
 Upon the earth to there abound; 
 Uniting with the depths of air, 
 That growth attracts around it there; 
 The sun rays in the air we find, 
 
94 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And fills it with life-germs of mind, 
 Associated with electricity 
 From the sun, we cannot see; 
 That moves the sunlight in straight lines,- 
 The stronger principle of mind; 
 Tis that associated with it, 
 Superior motion it will get; 
 'Tis mind the motion with it bound 
 When four things were in sun-ray found 
 By science analyzing it, 
 They found four elements in one 
 That in the sun-ray to us come; 
 The mind germs that to earth is given 
 From out the starry dome of heaven. 
 Two gases in the air explain 
 How they united make the rain; 
 Oxygen and hydrogen unite 
 And create water sparkling bright; 
 Could those gases ere contain 
 Germ life in the drop of rain ? 
 That through a microscope is seen 
 Living life germs sport and gleam; 
 Out of water, sun and mud 
 " Upward troop the the lily's bud, 
 And in the higher brightness 
 Gathers all its lily's whiteness;" 
 So are germs sown from the air 
 In the earth that meeting there; 
 Find conditions for their being 
 To unfold in larger seeing; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 95 
 
 Personal they start to grow 
 And a larger body know; 
 As it burst its atom cell, 
 Of its species it did tell, 
 As to larger life it grew; 
 This was life beginning new, 
 In primeval time we say, 
 And on islands new, to-day. 
 But as we absorb life, those 
 Germs that atom life compose, 
 Of our species we contain 
 And have conditions just the same, 
 That to-day our bodies hold 
 All life atoms so untold, 
 Thus developed is the stage 
 Of progressive life, this age; 
 Life germs have a higher way 
 For beginning life to-day; 
 Something higher than the earth, 
 For its mother-natal birth. 
 Parentage in nature strives 
 To protect advancing lives; 
 In her care she makes secure 
 Provisions that may life endure. 
 
 PROGRESSION OF LIFE ORIGIN. 
 
 FLESH is atoms used before, 
 In life repetition o'er; 
 That thus develop more to bring 
 Out thought conditions in every thing; 
 
$6 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Germs develop higher mind, 
 
 Because conditions they can find, 
 
 To unfold and yield to life, 
 
 And not confine its motions rife 
 
 With materials as coarse 
 
 As the earth, our primal source. 
 
 Thus to-day we have the man 
 
 That so much can understand; 
 
 Of the realms of space explore, 
 
 Where its life germ was before, 
 
 Ere it came into this being, 
 
 Personal for higher seeing; 
 
 Ere it mastered thought and mind, 
 
 Growing more in God to find. 
 
 Man in spaces comprehend 
 
 And through distance speech extend. 
 
 Until he is proving how 
 
 Ever present, thought is now 
 
 By electric made to be, 
 
 In an instant o'er the sea; 
 
 Or again to understand 
 
 Speech, and hear across the land; 
 
 Making omnipresent thought 
 
 Almost in itself outwrought; 
 
 Making machinery to do, 
 
 Work — without the feeling, too; 
 
 Such has mastered human mind, 
 
 More and better things to find; 
 
 As the ages still advance, 
 
 As we take a backward glance; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 97 
 
 Growing more in God to find 
 All there is in that of mind; 
 When all this you can express, 
 This is growth in " godliness." 
 We have almost burst the shell 
 Of material where we dwell, 
 It has grown so thin to be, 
 With electric mind so free, 
 That we hear the speech of those 
 That to higher life arose; 
 Thought transference, which we find, 
 Is a higher sense of mind; 
 By this power we hear from those 
 That from matter have arose, 
 And find beyond our mortal ken 
 Life has being without end, 
 Nothing dies or does decay, 
 Atoms flee from each away, 
 Until the mortal body fade 
 Out of sight that has displayed, 
 Such solid substance, moved by mind 
 Which left it to another find, 
 More adapted to its might, 
 Growing up into the light; 
 From the darkness of the earth, 
 Revealing mind in greater worth; 
 Blossoms it may yet unfold 
 In the brighter light of gold, 
 Which it reaches up on high; 
 This is all it is to die, 
 
 H 
 
9§ THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Mind has entered higher brightness 
 To unfold unfettered lightness, 
 Where it is not held, but free 
 To reach its own inherency; 
 In the ages yet to come, 
 Beautifying every one; 
 With the powers of grander thought, 
 When the mind is more outwrought; 
 Just above this earth of ours 
 Mind has scope for higher powers, 
 There eventually to outgrow 
 Hereditary tendencies below, 
 Which we take from the material, 
 Impress left on the ethereal. 
 
 PROGRESSION OF ATOMS. 
 
 MATERIALS that have been used o'er and o'er, 
 Mind affinitized with before; 
 Materials that were thought impressed 
 Before in bodies, more or less; 
 Ere they were for us to bring 
 Out through it, our unfolding. 
 A means through which our life could be 
 Held, — and self assertion see; 
 And the impress on them wrought 
 Tends to lean that way our thought; 
 Thus our mind is warped to bring, 
 Out our inate unfolding; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 99 
 
 While materials which we use 
 
 And from which we have to choose, 
 
 Have heredity of thought, 
 
 Long ago upon them wrought; 
 
 That have been the servants too 
 
 Minds of anger — made them do; 
 
 Or of drunkenness and sin, 
 
 That materials have within 
 
 The impressions on them made 
 
 By the life of every grade; 
 
 That the same materials wrought 
 
 In their bodies moved by thought; 
 
 The materials used by them, 
 
 Which we take and use again; 
 
 And were used the same before 
 
 Since the feeblest life had power 
 
 Over matter to unite 
 
 In a body for their might 
 
 Of ruling— to their will obey; 
 
 Materials have progressed this way, ' 
 
 By adaptation to the thought, 
 
 That has o'er and o'er them wrought; 
 
 'Till it reaches us to find 
 
 It is yielding more to mind. 
 
 It fetters not this mind of ours 
 
 As when mind had shown lesser powers; 
 
 Now adapts itself to motion, 
 
 That some represent the notion, 
 
 That we will not ever die, 
 
 Bodies too will upward fly; 
 
IOO THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 So etheral they become, 
 That the two will meet as one; 
 Fitted for ethereal life. 
 But we feel the mind of strife, 
 Will surmount the one of clay 
 And go out and in as may 
 Be their will to go or come, 
 As two bodies held in one. 
 Each now sever ties that bind 
 And go out the human mind 
 To a broader field explore, 
 Of ethereal being more, 
 And return to this again, 
 And no death — this would explain. 
 'Tis our bodies laid aside 
 Now that death the two divide; 
 And to know these fields of air 
 And its limits everywhere; 
 Would our earth experience be 
 Ere we passed from this to stay; 
 In eternal being pure, 
 Life where ever will endure 
 What composes us of mind, 
 Those conditions yet to find; 
 Neither death nor yet decay 
 Would associate this way; 
 With clear seeing this will see — 
 Known while here what is to be; 
 And no death would thus divide, 
 Father, mother, sister, bride, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Husband, brother, friends of earth, 
 Have but risen to a birth; 
 Where the light of sun and air, 
 Higher brightness doth compare. 
 
 As the seed contains the tree, 
 What its growing yet will be, 
 When from out the seed to swell 
 And to higher brightness rise; 
 Where it sees the sun and skies, 
 Out of moisture earth that bore 
 Its existence there before. 
 
 THE USEFULNESS OF THE MATERIAL BODY. 
 
 So to us the earth has need, 
 
 As the darkness to the seed, 
 
 But when higher we arise 
 
 To the brightness of the skies, 
 
 Mind will need not then the clay 
 
 To withold its active ray, 
 
 In embodiment to rest, 
 
 'Till it can itself progress, 
 
 To advance its self-hood powers 
 
 Growing of this life of ours, 
 
 To the period of thought, 
 
 When self action it has wrought; 
 
 Why could not its self-hood grow, 
 
 In the spirit atom so ? 
 
102 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 When in action it was free 
 
 It moved right on most easily, 
 
 But when bound and could not stir 
 
 In material-inert power, 
 
 Then its self-hood had to grow, 
 
 The only motion it could know; 
 
 For 'twas natural to motion, 
 
 And vent itself in self promotion, 
 
 When its motion in material, 
 
 Was held — it self grew the ethereal; 
 
 And a body soon you see, 
 
 Of material personality, 
 
 With a force — life motion bound 
 
 In material clothed around, 
 
 The means that Nature took you know, 
 
 For our consciousness to grow. 
 
 The spirit atom she must bind, 
 
 That it might grow in self of mind, 
 
 To larger personality, 
 
 And all its mind inherency. 
 
 This law the horticulturists find 
 
 Will make a growth if they can bind, 
 
 Some part of plant life to defy, 
 
 And thus has grown the u Kohl Rabi." 
 
 Life its motion will assert 
 
 In some way if 'tis held inert. 
 
 When its self advancement wrought 
 
 Up to where it grew in thought, 
 
 Higher up it moved to when 
 
 Revealed to be, — women and men; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 103 
 
 Highest type of mind to be 
 Gathering still its destiny; 
 Of the thinking powers of mind, 
 When the spirit-land doth find; 
 'Cumbered no more freely give 
 Action which is mind to live, 
 For electrical its motion 
 Would continue in promotion. 
 
 PRIMITIVE MOVEMENT OF LIFE. 
 
 LIFE self motion will assert 
 But it must be held inert; 
 If in self-hood it would grow 
 In material atom so 
 It was bound a central force 
 That the atom held at first, 
 In lifes progress upward tending 
 The divine in us was sending; 
 That inherent central force, — 
 Atom mind of " Central Source," 
 And when conditions had as right 
 The positive and negative atom unite; 
 The principals of female and male, 
 That in all Nature and space prevail; 
 And their union still would be 
 Natural to personality; 
 In life motion to unite, 
 Into one of motion quite 
 
104 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Electrical — of moving power. 
 Opposites will tend to give 
 Motion in all things that live; 
 So self motion it possessed, 
 When in union could not rest, 
 And advancing upward climbed 
 In the personal of mind, 
 With a dual nature growing 
 All self added powers bestowing. 
 
 SPACE AND AIR. 
 
 THE elements from space doth give 
 The atoms through which all can live; 
 By their selections growth will there 
 Draw atoms from space to make the air, 
 What all material growths expel, 
 The air becomes, of that as well. 
 New atoms fill this waste of life, 
 Expelled in changes constant, rife 
 With growth — and so the unseen air 
 Has all within it everywhere 
 That growing life can thus unfold, 
 That any form within can hold; 
 Sustaining energies for growth, 
 As well as for material forms; 
 That clothes the spirit and adorns 
 The ever growing life within, 
 That always heretofore has been 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 105 
 
 An atom in the realms of space, 
 Until it found this growing place. 
 The waste thrown off by you, — will see 
 Accepted by some other life; 
 To form their bodies changing rife, 
 In varied substance to exchange 
 Relationship with all life range 
 That we in contact, live or touch, 
 Where both will be affected much, 
 If they in correspondence are, 
 With us either near or far. 
 Results for us, will either be 
 For good, if not a misery. 
 So each life seeks its own to find 
 The happiness of growing mind; 
 And if it finds its like will be 
 The chords of perfect harmony ; 
 Attuned by concert with our mate, 
 What we alone appreciate. 
 
 MATERIALISM. 
 
 OBJECTORS say conditions make 
 The mind — that principle alone; 
 Then how are different species known 
 When both have the same circumstances? 
 Alike they will not grow or be 
 But different species you will see. 
 
106 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 If the material, made the mind 
 
 No different species you would find. 
 
 They like in body would unite, 
 
 When circumstance were alike; 
 
 In twins no difference would be, — 
 
 But most unlike — you often see. 
 
 Side by side two plants may grow, 
 
 And each selects its own to blow; 
 
 Its life identity is there 
 
 Within the seed — and colors rare; 
 
 Each life selecting from the same, 
 
 Shows different life the seed contained; 
 
 And their identity is shown, 
 
 When each bursts forth and larger grown; 
 
 And so it is with life that you 
 
 Hold in identity as true; 
 
 You both may use the self same air 
 
 And food, and bodies not compare. 
 
 If bodies made the human mind, 
 
 The same conditions you would find 
 
 Would make two species just alike; 
 
 But each selects from out the same, 
 
 What he appreciates, — contain 
 
 In each, a very different shape, 
 
 The self same elements would make. 
 
 So mind made you and was the force 
 
 The atom started with of course; 
 
 The mental atom making mind, 
 
 With all its added powers combined; 
 
 As it unfolded more and more, 
 
 From what it ever was before; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 107 
 
 Concealed within an atom force 
 
 In energy — the living source 
 
 Of life, within the boundless whole; 
 
 We see in Infinite control 
 
 The system of the universe. 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL BODY. 
 
 IN all its planetary course, 
 Of moving life and energy; 
 Atomic certain it must be; 
 And it harmonious is with law 
 That toward a center all things draw; 
 A living body it must be 
 Composed of atoms, same as we. 
 The elements are going 'round, 
 Bodies in space are moving found; 
 Attraction moves them 'round the one, 
 That strongest draws — planet or sun, 
 For all is life and motion given 
 There is no still in earth or heaven; 
 It all in motion has a course, 
 A universe of central force. 
 We see its system and we know 
 A universe of life doth go 
 Around a Central Moving Force, 
 And worlds and suns are in its course. 
 His living body — Nature's Mind, 
 Diffused throughout the whole we find; 
 
108 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 " All parts of one Stupendous Whole," 
 Filled with all germs that life unfold 
 To larger bodies, — we may grow, 
 But atoms still in God we know; 
 We are but parts His person fill, 
 As atoms are controlled by will; 
 Of universal system-laws, 
 Whose forces move, but have a cause, 
 If we compare His life to us, 
 The atoms of His body must 
 A system be moved by His will; 
 And everywhere His impulse thrill; 
 So we unite with His and we 
 Obey His will, what e'er it be. 
 Involuntary impulse all! 
 Which we appreciate — so small; 
 In waves of compensation laws, 
 Where all effects result from cause. 
 As the animalcule in us 
 In life courses may be thus, 
 Could not comprehend our mind, 
 But a force moving, might find; 
 As atoms in our body move, 
 Involuntarily with love; 
 And moving forces so express 
 A harmony with all the rest. 
 Touch but an atom 'tis the same, 
 It thrills at once unto the brain; 
 And motion sets up to relieve, 
 And carry off what doth aggrieve. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 109 
 
 So we are parts of God entwined — 
 A universe of all combined; 
 And so related all are we, 
 That not a pulse can thrill, but He 
 Feels the impression great or small, 
 Joy, pain, or sadness, throughout all. 
 If all are parts of one grand whole 
 Connected all are with His soul; 
 And sending thought to Him from thee, 
 A wave comes back, as if to free 
 Thee in thy individuality; 
 And equalize what'er it be. 
 
 COMPENSATION. 
 
 IN compensation, ere it comes, 
 With many unbelieving ones 
 They never realize that grief 
 Should come to them — and wish relief; 
 Although they have to others given 
 Sorrows that may have been heart-riven. 
 And time may pass before this comes, 
 Ere the wave doth reach the shore, 
 Reacting back where struck before; 
 Back on the source that suffering gave, 
 In compensation's moving wave. 
 And if 'twas joy, it gives the one 
 Who gave it more where it begun. 
 
IIO THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 So compensation is the law, 
 That all have noted if they draw 
 Close conclusions and observe 
 That nothing can avert, or swerve 
 From this great tendency to draw 
 Through action and reaction law. 
 These moving purposes, in time, 
 Will teach a moral law to mind 
 That will inevitably entail, 
 And teach results that never fail. 
 And better be for what 'twill bring, 
 And help relieve all suffering; 
 For surely these effects return 
 To primal source that lessons learn. 
 As light reflects and shoots across — 
 A shadow on 'till it is lost, 
 Reflects and back to sources come, 
 Where action starts, from every one; 
 And energy, a ceaseless force, 
 Moves onward, all within its course; 
 So we are moving by Divine 
 Omnipotence, the central mind. 
 
 CIRCLING MOTION. 
 
 AND distance has no end, but round 
 And full of bodies, all is found 
 To move in circles, so the years 
 Revolve throughout eternal spheres. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. Ill 
 
 Time is but something we call time 
 That spaces mark between the worlds, 
 But in supposing there were none 
 To mark a distance there is some, 
 Something that fills distance whirled; 
 Life motion also stirs the worlds 
 That live in space, as dots that flow 
 Around, because all distance go 
 In this life motion, as the source 
 Of undivided central force. 
 And all within it follow laws, 
 In symbol of this " Primal Cause." 
 Our bodies are a dual one, 
 The male and female both become 
 A unit life, so God must be 
 In principals the same as we; 
 Atomic bodies us compose, 
 But single mind o'er it arose. 
 
 UNDIVIDED MIND AS A UNIT. 
 
 TO be the unit moving force, 
 So life has bodies like its source, 
 Cut off the arm, — 'tis atom made, 
 'Twill not this principal invade; 
 We feel our body as a whole, — 
 A unit power, you call it soul; 
 We care not what the name may be, 
 A unit mind enclosed have we; 
 
112 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And this identity of mind 
 
 Is what we keep through endless time. 
 
 SENSATION OF ATOMS. 
 
 WE know the body has a range 
 Of constant and material change; 
 Atomic formed — some doth compose 
 Those of feelings — some are those 
 That are not the nerves to mind — 
 Bone and sinew some combine; 
 But they ever go and come 
 New, for old, supplies each one; 
 In the constant ever change, 
 That ethereal minds arrange, 
 To upbuild the body where 
 Its selection places there; 
 Some more active to his mind, 
 Carrying thoughts as they combine, 
 To the extreme of finger tips, 
 Or voiced in moving of the lips, 
 Which of atoms are as those 
 Which some other part compose, 
 In the brain or nervous cells, 
 Action and reaction — expells 
 Atoms which these thoughts compose, 
 To supply their place with those 
 That are new — but in this wise, 
 Atoms see if they are eyes, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 113 
 
 Atoms feel if they are nerve, 
 While unto the mind they serve; 
 As they go and as they come, 
 Have experiences, each one, 
 That are those of atom life, 
 Surging with the forces rife; 
 When with mind in love they come 
 Responsive — atoms do become; 
 To express the mind of thought 
 That these atoms drew and wrought, 
 In material bodies where 
 They as servants to him there 
 Must have listened, to obey, 
 And progressed in this same way, 
 To sensations of a thought, 
 Which attracted them and wrought 
 Out a body, like the one 
 They are yielding, too, become 
 By the will and force of mind, 
 They in yielding, too, combine; 
 Making different forms of yore, 
 Those they helped to make before; 
 Different bodies thus express 
 The ethereal one they dress. 
 Then where we have been before 
 Making bodies o'er and o'er, 
 And exchanging love with mind 
 Atoms feel when they combine, 
 With the thoughts of lives before, 
 That have used materials o'er, 
 
114 THE LYRI C OF LIFE. 
 
 Reincarnated with each life; 
 
 Sense their joy, or feel their strife, 
 
 Active with a mind we know 
 
 Of its wants and of its woe; 
 
 For its feelings we express, 
 
 Some the more and others less, 
 
 Words the mind willed us to do; 
 
 This has been the life of you, 
 
 Ere you came into this one, 
 
 Where your consciousness begun; 
 
 Where your selfhood larger grew, 
 
 And added life power came to you, 
 
 Movement — whose results were breathing, 
 
 New conceptive life perceiving; 
 
 Was awakened from this motion 
 
 Of the life power through promotion; 
 
 Which resulted in the mind, 
 
 New effulgences to shine. 
 
 Breathing that outside of you 
 
 Gave your being something new, 
 
 A connective power with space — 
 
 Sunlight, air and all you trace 
 
 Of its elements unfold, 
 
 To you come, and you behold 
 
 All there is outside of thee. 
 
 'Tis called consciousness by thee; 
 
 In the breathing — thought combined 
 
 In the chemistry, with mind. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 115 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SLEEP. 
 
 WHAT is sleep ? I hear you say, 
 Sleep induces in this way; 
 If the mind would close its door, 
 You asleep were, as before, 
 When you were in fetal life; 
 Infant life power it retains, 
 All mind ever had remains; 
 Power that mind has in its ways 
 To return to youthful days, 
 Mind unable to project, 
 Backward it can still reflect; 
 It retains primeval power, 
 Sleep projects to thoughtful hour; 
 So the mind holds its control, 
 In protection of the soul; 
 All it held — the thinking powers, 
 With its sleep and waking hours; 
 In vibrating action giving, 
 To inertia then to living, 
 To material — then to mind, 
 Each upon the other climbed; 
 One power on the other bring, 
 As winter lapses into spring. 
 One in love of sleep was resting, 
 The other from it — was divesting, 
 In the active power of thought; 
 Until from each the other drew, 
 And each their own love to pursue. 
 
Il6 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Life to seek the realms of mind, 
 
 And untrammeled action find; 
 
 While all the atoms of material, 
 
 In separation, became ethereal 
 
 As the air and did not stay 
 
 In a body, but fled away; 
 
 When the stage that you call death — 
 
 Life, out of material left; 
 
 The atoms each from each expelled, 
 
 For nothing drew them, nothing held, 
 
 When the life had left them there 
 
 Soon they were again the air. 
 
 This is how our life advances, 
 
 When its self growth takes its chances; 
 
 When in atom life it stays, 
 
 Then more quiet are its ways, 
 
 'Till moved by higher forces — when 
 
 It obeys those forces then, 
 
 Of whatever life may draw 
 
 Them through love it never saw; 
 
 Ere it grew itself to be 
 
 A larger personality; 
 
 Ere its life had thus progressed, 
 
 And millions other lives had dressed, 
 
 With a physical, and they 
 
 Had learned the mind power to obey. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 117 
 
 ROMANCE OF AN ATOM. 
 
 IN all bodies we have lived; 
 To the trees and flowers have given 
 The rose hues that have expressed, 
 The life-rose that it has dressed; 
 So life atoms have before 
 Been in bodies o'er and o'er; 
 And together well have made 
 Statures tall that thought displayed; 
 As it served the will of mind, 
 Did its biddings thought enshrined; 
 'Till perceptible it were, 
 To whatever did occur, 
 As it acted with the mind, 
 Thrilled with pleasure — or defined 
 Problems grand, through human speech, 
 As to thought realm it did reach; 
 And produce the thought again, 
 That was formed within the brain, 
 Where the seat of mind held sway, 
 And dictated day by day; 
 Going out or coming back 
 As mind servants they did act, 
 All along the concert line, 
 Each vibrating thought of mind, 
 To its neighbor next to it, 
 'Till the surface they did get. 
 Uttering in a speech, the word 
 That in speech of mind had heard. 
 
Il8 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 This, material atoms have done 
 
 In the body of each one, 
 
 It has ever lived in where, 
 
 It vibrated thought and prayer; 
 
 For if paralyzed was one, 
 
 Servants for his thoughts have none, 
 
 In those parts where speech is done; 
 
 Thus in the body, atoms find 
 
 Work to do for human mind; 
 
 Acting for its unseen friend — 
 
 Diplomat it did attend; 
 
 At the doorway, through the hall, 
 
 Carrying news to give to all; 
 
 Uttering speech in lips that said, 
 
 Eyes that looked the thought instead; 
 
 We the servants have been made, 
 
 In the life of every grade; 
 
 'Till we reach the season when — 
 
 We were servants unto men. 
 
 So impressed has been our life, 
 
 When in atoms we were rife, 
 
 We have lived those same scenes o'er,- 
 
 Where our life has been before; 
 
 Ere we made your body where 
 
 Your sweet mind so soft and fair, 
 
 Touched us with its sympathy, 
 
 And you reflected back from me 
 
 Something like heredity; 
 
 'Tis materials that enshrine 
 
 Acts sometimes upon the mind; — 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 119 
 
 Sentiments on them impressed 
 
 Some the more and others less; 
 
 For you never lived before 
 
 But in atoms, o'er and o'er 
 
 You have lived in groups with those, 
 
 Acting what another knows; 
 
 This was first your human mind, 
 
 With humanity in form, 
 
 Where you larger grew to be, 
 
 All that mind in you can see, — 
 
 Breathing, thinking, conscious life, 
 
 Seeing, hearing, all the strife, 
 
 And have grown to be the king, 
 
 Over atoms which you bring, 
 
 For your body, to compose. 
 
 Which will act for you — as those 
 
 That once governed you in life, 
 
 When you were an atom rife 
 
 In a body doing will; 
 
 You are living, acting still; 
 
 But outside your body see; — 
 
 By breathing — this has come to thee, 
 
 A connected power attain, 
 
 With sunlight, air, and all you gain, 
 
 By unfolding higher powers 
 
 In breathing motion, which is ours 
 
 With the chemistry of mind; 
 
 All our consciousness we find; 
 
 Elements that life unfold, 
 
 To you come and you behold 
 
120 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 In expression of the mind, 
 
 This new thought world, which you find; 
 
 To develop reason, sense, 
 
 Where you came from, whither, whence, 
 
 You are journeying, all's a stage, 
 
 Of some state and life and age. 
 
 No life ever did begin, 
 
 We are atoms all of Him; — 
 
 God who is the whole we see 
 
 Universe, and all is He, 
 
 And His body has control 
 
 Has its seat and central soul. 
 
 We the servants of his mind 
 
 Always will with Him combine. 
 
 Ever will be as we soar, 
 
 Circling on forevermore; 
 
 On in knowledge we will be, 
 
 Parts of its immensity, 
 
 We His system all will fill, 
 
 And be atoms in Him still; 
 
 When we reach the highest stage 
 
 We can think of future age. 
 
 It is true the Prophet said 
 
 " In His image we were made," 
 
 Atoms in us every grade; 
 
 Animalcule life through all, 
 
 Makes our bodies great and small. 
 
 Will is force of the mind; 
 
 Force as in space combined; 
 
 Moving energy and strife, 
 
 'Round the Central Force Of Life. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 121 
 
 Brain is central of the mind; 
 
 And connected motion find, 
 
 With all parts, its courses run, 
 
 In the personal become. 
 
 So the Universal Mind, 
 
 Central moves the whole combined, — 
 
 Universal system, where 
 
 All is life in space and air; 
 
 And a correspondence find 
 
 In God and forces of the mind; 
 
 For all the universe is moving 
 
 'Round some center-worlds are proving; 
 
 Force invisible is power; 
 
 Mind explains this every hour; 
 
 As our thoughts the mind illume, 
 
 So the flower yields its perfume; 
 
 Both invisible exhale 
 
 Life force, of a different scale; 
 
 Central mind gives off this power, 
 
 Acting, as perfume the flower. 
 
 Magnetism is a thing 
 
 Unseen — yet its forces bring 
 
 Strength and substance, so to hold 
 
 Cords of unseen substance fold 
 
 'Round us, so we know and feel 
 
 Substance, which does not reveal 
 
 To the sight, but still we know 
 
 They with unseen atoms flow; 
 
 Unseen substance sure must be, 
 
 Alike those that we can see; — 
 
122 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Are atomic in construction 
 
 That conceal in their production, 
 
 Spirit atoms — infant minds 
 
 Which in unseen forces binds. 
 
 Drawn by affinity and will, 
 
 In concert acting — forces still. 
 
 So the universe is moved 
 
 By unseen forces it is proved; 
 
 For electricity is one 
 
 Of the forces which become; 
 
 To our senses something there, 
 
 Filling all through space and air; 
 
 It must be atomic in construction; 
 
 And spirit atoms are from its production. 
 
 So all substance of thought grade 
 
 Is of spirit atoms made, 
 
 And all substances unseen 
 
 Flowing in magnetic stream 
 
 Through the body, moved by mind. 
 
 So in space and stars we find 
 
 Moving in the space between 
 
 Planets, there is that unseen 
 
 Magnet, that to us appears 
 
 Nothing — through the orbit spheres; 
 
 All is substance of thought grade, 
 
 And of spirit atoms made; 
 
 Making substances unseen, 
 
 Moving in the space between 
 
 Planets orbits through the spheres; 
 
 All is substance which appears 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 123 
 
 To be nothing, when unseen; 
 
 But expression in the gleam 
 
 Of electric light, that there 
 
 Is expression in the air 
 
 Of a substance, like a thought 
 
 That will presence show when brought 
 
 Into usefulness, or bound 
 
 Move on lines, or whirling 'round. 
 
 Particles will so unite 
 
 That love and hate express to sight, 
 
 From unseen forces which unite 
 
 Them into a substance seen, 
 
 In affinity to move; 
 
 It expresses in it love, 
 
 Or hate which sensations use, — 
 
 As its course of will pursues; 
 
 Both these natures, higher thought 
 
 Use still more in bodies wrought. 
 
 This would show that atom minds 
 
 In attractive forces binds; 
 
 Mind concerts its unseen will, 
 
 On the atoms which doth fill 
 
 The nervous fluid in its course — 
 
 The electric substance — Force. 
 
 And they follow in its course; 
 
 In their sense of love and hate 
 
 Meeting mind, they thus relate, 
 
 Now my romance to pursue 
 
 Of the atom life and view, 
 
 And its story longer tell 
 
 Where it soared and where it fell. 
 
124 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 We present the mind to view 
 
 When we shape the face of you, 
 
 Its revelations make and thus 
 
 Frowns and smiles are made by us; 
 
 Lisped in wail or dying moan, 
 
 On face where wretchedness is shown, 
 
 That may well a thought compose, 
 
 Expression on the face it throws, 
 
 That drew the picture of the mind 
 
 Upon the features, shade and line, 
 
 As servants of his will obey; 
 
 On the material to display 
 
 What the atoms understood; 
 
 To shape in concert, then they would; 
 
 When adapted to the thought 
 
 Of mind that had the body wrought. 
 
 Once an atom I was where 
 
 Disease, had pierced the body there; 
 
 Or happened there at that same time 
 
 Within the elements enshrined; 
 
 Mind great efforts made to throw 
 
 Off waste substance that was so 
 
 Inactive, in the vital part, 
 
 It could no longer stir the heart. 
 
 Then life took its outward flight 
 
 And death had stilled the form — to sight; 
 
 Her, my complement and bride 
 
 Two, we were, worked side by side; 
 
 Paired were we — revolving 'round 
 
 In life currents— loving bound; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 1 25 
 
 What consternation when we saw 
 
 That life had answered to a law, 
 
 That we were left without a will, 
 
 Or governing power, for all was still. 
 
 The mind had left its body then; 
 
 To get out of the shape of men 
 
 Was next our feelings — so to do; 
 
 But life did not expel us through 
 
 Its courses — as it had before, 
 
 And we must stay till all was o'er; 
 
 'Till atoms thought to take their part 
 
 And strive from each one — each to start; 
 
 And as we did this pleasure seek 
 
 Of our own feelings not a week, 
 
 Were we confined to stay so still, 
 
 We each expressed our own sweet will; 
 
 And soon we were again in air, 
 
 And earth, and winds, and everywhere; 
 
 And heard the call of bees and flowers, 
 
 And languished through the summer hours; 
 
 And fanned a gentle maiden's cheek 
 
 That loved our whisperings to seek, 
 
 She drew us in her sighing breath, 
 
 Where loves sweet voice, could find no death; 
 
 We sported on through nerves to find 
 
 The feelings of another mind; 
 
 And in a loving tender thought, 
 
 We seemed of this same substance wrought, 
 
 And given out in loving word, 
 
 Receptive there another heard, 
 
126 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And drew us in his fondest thrill 
 Of sentiments, that seemed to fill 
 His being, then with active power 
 It seemed with mind to be then, our 
 Mission, 'till we knew, or seemed 
 To know, our substance was unseen, 
 For we were substance of a thought, 
 And feeling, which was then en wrought; 
 And seemed prophetically to see 
 A day ahead when we might be, 
 Grown ourselves to be a mind 
 Receptive to a thought, inclined 
 In consciousness, that we might be 
 A larger individuality; 
 And in a living thought to thrill, 
 And find conditions where we will 
 From out our atom cell — be grown; 
 And more of real existence known; 
 When we could leap as do the flowers, 
 Up from the seed to higher powers; 
 Through the change, unconscious be; 
 Outshone by higher individuality. 
 In life's bright scenes so new, forget 
 Awhile, where atom life had slept; 
 Emblazoned by this life so new, 
 That breathing motion to us drew 
 From space and sunlight — newly born 
 Into a realm, so much adorn 
 Outside of self hood, where we drew, 
 Our first existence, to the new 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 1 27 
 
 Conditions, where our life would grow, 
 Out of the atom — more to know; 
 As we increased to higher power 
 And motion added, as the flower 
 From out an atom seed, will grow 
 To be a stalk and leaf and blow, 
 Upon its topmost highest stem, 
 Yielding perfume, as thoughts in men, 
 Is product of their highest life; 
 When it inhales from air and sun, 
 And form has grown, from that begun; 
 Primevally an atom small 
 That never did begin at all, 
 For it was ever an atom mind 
 In Universal Forces, where 
 It was in God an atom there 
 And ever His great form we fill 
 And are to him as atoms still; 
 But living in a different state 
 Of life, more observations make; 
 And ever will as on we soar 
 In God and conscious evermore; 
 As elements our life inhale, 
 A motion that in life prevail; 
 Will still continue as we reach, 
 In elements, no words of speech 
 Can be expressed on earth, to you 
 Where limited is yet your view, 
 Of what the universe contains 
 Of beauty in its broader range. 
 
128 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 The universe has central force, 
 
 And central mind — of all mind source; 
 
 And omnipresent outward flows, 
 
 Through all and every thing it goes; 
 
 Alike have atoms central power, 
 
 And are a unit of mind dower; 
 
 If units form all substance seen 
 
 Would not the unseen be the same ? 
 
 Electricity we can name, 
 
 As one that you must comprehend 
 
 As atomic, where more extend, 
 
 Higher, finer, those there be, 
 
 That are still yet unknown to thee; 
 
 This is the basic of our plan, 
 
 Where individual starts in man; 
 
 As well as everything you see 
 
 That has life personality. 
 
 In man's invincible of mind, 
 
 That in material forms we find 
 
 A unit force, that to them draw 
 
 Materials, by attraction law. 
 
 Attraction is a force of love 
 
 In atoms as in forms above, 
 
 And by their hate expel away 
 
 Those, after using — every day; 
 
 Thus all the while he gains a new 
 
 Material body, through and through; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 But always the same mind, retains 
 In person. — This you see explains 
 Why the material changing new, 
 Shapes always, the personal of you. 
 For if a person was not there 
 Within, to place them everywhere 
 That in selections it has made, 
 For every part, its proper grade; 
 How could they come together so, 
 That your same personal could know; 
 What force but mind could be selecting 
 From everywhere, and be protecting 
 Your same looks, and person too ? 
 When this thought carefully you view. 
 Mind must discriminate and draw, 
 These atoms by its love — the law, 
 To clothe itself — They form its shape; 
 And when mind leaves it, they escape 
 And do not then in forms unite, — 
 The atoms of material, right 
 For bodies, that will mind express, 
 In life and thought-moving, unless 
 A central force, as power of mind 
 The atoms do again combine; 
 And then it is another shape 
 Of looks and face to imitate; 
 The same species may disclose 
 Something similar to those; 
 And be a unit life of mind 
 Within materials combined, 
 
 T 
 
130 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 But a life atom different still 
 
 In thought and looks its presence fill, 
 
 An atom force with body small, 
 
 And growing larger this is all; 
 
 There is to make a person there 
 
 Out of materials coarse and rare; 
 
 That doth compose the flesh and bone, 
 
 Or nerves, that have more feeling shown, 
 
 With mind, so atoms differ much 
 
 With thought sensation, by the touch 
 
 Of mind upon them, quick respond, 
 
 Intelligent, connective bond; 
 
 While others cannot feel or show, 
 
 The least sensation that you know, 
 
 Conveyed to you, from outer strife, 
 
 To citadel, of conscious life; 
 
 The central seat of mind in power, 
 
 Dominant person, over our 
 
 Whole system, but the seat of mind, 
 
 In one location, central find, 
 
 Within the orbit of the head, 
 
 Almost a round — but where 'tis fed 
 
 With body, sending out a part 
 
 Of circulation with the heart; 
 
 As a machiney reaches long, 
 
 To gather in and move more strong; 
 
 So mind connects with body through, 
 
 That will more surface ground explore; 
 
 And gather in, increasing more 
 
 Than what it could if it were round, 
 
 And in circumference small were bound. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Thus bodies feed the mind and hold 
 
 Their sentinels, which they unfold, 
 
 When they have burst the cell of mind, 
 
 A body does project to find 
 
 The higher gains of life to be; 
 
 As from the round seed bursts a tree, 
 
 It is a higher form of life; 
 
 As larger surface it reveals; 
 
 For surface of the body feels, 
 
 So feeling is sensation more 
 
 Than what your life was in before, 
 
 It did a larger form express, 
 
 And in material you were dressed. 
 
 It is protected and obscure 
 
 In darkness, 'till it can endure, 
 
 By being conscious unto pain; 
 
 Itself in matter must remain. 
 
 Matter is non-conductor to 
 
 Forces invisible to you. 
 
 Conditions life-growth doth prepare, 
 
 That life its conscious self, declare; 
 
 So in the darkness of material, 
 
 Expanded the life-growth of ethereal; 
 
 With the material so combined, 
 
 That there can be self-growth of mind. 
 
 Nature all her forms conceal 
 
 In darkness, to the first reveal; 
 
 Life in starting growth to be 
 
 Protected, and in blindness be; 
 
 To have conditions first to grow 
 
 On what we call the earth below; 
 
 ■3i 
 
132 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And blinded to the light supreme, 
 That brighter life above us gleam; 
 Where we will rise as from the earth 
 And darkness — up a seed is burst 
 " As from the rocks and earth and mud 
 Upward troop the lily's bud," 
 And gather in this higher brightness, 
 All the lily's purest whiteness, 
 So we will rise from earth and clay 
 Into the light of purer day; 
 And gather beauty of the soul, 
 That will the brightest mind unfold, 
 In beauty of inherent power, 
 As on the treetop blooms the flower; 
 And then the loveliness will see, 
 Of what our life was made to be; 
 And God the Author and the Source 
 Of life in us — we'll love of course; 
 And feel a constant joy to know 
 More of ourselves than here below; 
 To comprehend these higher powers 
 Of life — seen more and more in ours. 
 All of ourself will be divine, 
 To be an atom of His mind, 
 And we would God love as ourself, 
 When we a part of him would be, 
 In correspondence you must see, 
 To be an atom of His mind, 
 The spark of life must be divine; 
 To be a unit of His mind, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 133 
 
 That fills the universe with love; 
 Such is the God we know above; 
 To live and to immortal be, 
 Will be rejoicings you will see 
 That fills the bosom of your life. 
 
 THE HIGHER LIFE. 
 
 ABOVE — when meet husband and wife, 
 Mothers and fathers, brothers, where 
 Sisters and friends will all be there; 
 Rejoicings, for they feel and know, 
 A clearer vision than here below. 
 They now observe, can see the end 
 That greater love and joys extend, 
 On to the Infinite extreme, 
 Where greater bliss in living seems. 
 Where fairest flowers and song of birds 
 And loving harmonies of words, 
 And softest winds, whose lulling sound 
 Vibrates with music all around; 
 Where bowers of roses — sweet perfume 
 Select from all the choicest bloom; 
 Wafts to your sense and seem to lull 
 You in conditions with the whole, 
 And fills your being with delight, 
 As though a glow of purest light 
 Enveloped you with purest joy, 
 Without the sorrow of alloy, 
 
134 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Or even thought of shade could bring 
 
 The smallest cloud of silvered ring; 
 
 Such is our bliss in highest life, 
 
 That we have reached beyond all strife. 
 
 Where unknown things would us obscure, 
 
 Now reason lights with knowledge pure; 
 
 And love so perfect all doth fill, 
 
 We meet with its magnetic thrill, 
 
 Unknown to any joy below, 
 
 It fills the air harmonious so 
 
 To our being's electric thrill; 
 
 Its ecstacies cannot be shown 
 
 By any thing that you have known. 
 
 Such are the highest joys of living, 
 
 That highest worlds of life are giving; 
 
 All its attaining joys doth teach 
 
 The lowest life to higher reach; 
 
 For life is struggling e'er to find 
 
 The greatest happiness of mind, 
 
 And this doth reach in worlds above, 
 
 And draws them upward through its love. 
 
 Where life culminates complete, 
 
 Heaven and earth doth truest meet. 
 
 But where are those that have not made 
 
 The perfect plane of higher grade, 
 
 That started out perhaps with you ? 
 
 Some now are learning lessons new, 
 
 To their advantage, how to reach 
 
 The heights experiences teach; 
 
 Who chose their way through different sight 
 
 Of ways, to reach this higher light. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 1 35 
 
 All gain these heights to the Supreme 
 
 In channels of a different stream, 
 
 That ever outward, onward flows 
 
 With different means and ways for those 
 
 That saw not God or felt His thought, 
 
 Through Nature in His being wrought, 
 
 As parts of you can feel your mind, 
 
 And thrill responsive with it act, 
 
 Take different routes, but reach with those 
 
 Parts where the circulation goes, 
 
 When they have gained the highest part 
 
 Of mind and pulsing with the heart; 
 
 Will feel its all prevading love; 
 
 So we feel God in heights above; 
 
 So we will reach the worlds sublime, 
 
 And glow of Infinite thought mind, 
 
 And thrill with its magnetic love, 
 
 Responsive in bright worlds above. 
 
 And every thing in God will reach 
 
 These worlds that experiences teach; 
 
 And all must feel it great or small 
 
 In conscious life attained by all. 
 
 Progression is God's circulation, 
 
 All reach yet the same destination. 
 
 Different each are different made, 
 
 And all life is a different grade 
 
 Of life identity, but all gain 
 
 The perfect growth and it retain, 
 
 Like fruit upon the orange tree, 
 
 Some ripe, while others green may be, 
 
 The ripe ones only you call good. 
 
136 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 BUT all will yet be understood 
 To be the same, but want the time 
 To reach its ripening, fair and fine; 
 And so all things are yet the good, 
 When life-work well is understood. 
 The smallest life that you may know 
 Is yet immortal on to grow, 
 Each flower and vegetable and tree, 
 And animals, as well as thee; 
 And worlds and all that they become 
 In rock and crystal that have begun. 
 All motion that asserts a life, 
 And moving in severest strife, 
 Will yet develop parts that lay 
 In dormancy, some future day; 
 By simply living, yet will grow 
 Out of conditions, where you know 
 Their life to be as you behold; 
 And shine as pure as perfect gold. 
 From all alloy they yet will reach 
 That have obscured some parts of each; 
 And freedom will to life express 
 Inherent traits, showing less 
 Unbalanced actions — full in mind; 
 Will show themselves — will yet abound 
 With those that long ago have found; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 137 
 
 And when they do, that life will show 
 A harmony of lovely glow, 
 As to the bass notes you would give, 
 Soprano power in what doth live; 
 The whole keyboard of sound — in full 
 Out of the worst sound there could be; 
 Would concert sound make harmony, 
 And so with life, the worst that may 
 Be seen will grow some future day, 
 In all life organs of mind force, 
 Result in beauty yet — of course. 
 So God an evil never made, 
 But laws of growth in every grade 
 Of life express different parts, 
 What conditions gave the start; 
 And action was the law of force, 
 And life expressed the combination 
 In all variety of creation; 
 Whaler it was in concert there 
 Of organs, gave life everywhere, 
 Of different shapes, to its desires, 
 That kept life concert — inward fires, 
 And if 'twas greed, to build it would 
 Its shape to gain the most it could; 
 For bodies show the inward soul, 
 And mind and thought that has control; 
 And physiognomy reads it right, 
 When it compares the features where 
 The coarse, or fine, expresses there; 
 And if 'twas fear that had its growth, 
 
138 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Life force within its body shaped, 
 
 Unto its needs to best escape, 
 
 The ears constructed well to hear 
 
 The slightest sound approaching near; 
 
 And built the limbs for action fleet, 
 
 The slim and strong and tiny feet. 
 
 As in the deer we see the build 
 
 Betokening what the mind instilled, 
 
 The parts where growth of mind has been 
 
 And in heredity extend; 
 
 To shape the physical and aid 
 
 This power in mind the form has made 
 
 For it, controls the atoms there 
 
 Supplying waste in its repair; 
 
 And thus the body from the start 
 
 Expresses freedom, for this part 
 
 Of motion, given by the mind, 
 
 And physiognomy reads its kind. 
 
 The lion with destructive power 
 
 Has built its jaws to best devour, 
 
 So mind expresses where 'tis grown, 
 
 What organs full can well be known, 
 
 And what are dormant, yet to grow, 
 
 Can well be read when this you know; 
 
 The base with the soprano tone 
 
 Must join where melody is known. 
 
 The symmetry of human mind, 
 
 Compared to animals we find, 
 
 That first existed on the earth, 
 
 With life in its primeval birth. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 139 
 
 SELFISHNESS. 
 
 WHY does the selfish part of mind, 
 Develop first ? The cause we find, 
 Productive to survival life, 
 To overcome its crowding strife, 
 Must start the selfish plane of thought, 
 Where life continuance is sought; 
 The base of growth before the one 
 That higher growing will become. 
 For selfishness tends to survive 
 Through persistant growth, all the alive; 
 Would they continue, they must feed 
 Themselves, so this trait all must need; 
 As they ascend, the base is filled, 
 With higher traits that on them build; 
 So selfishness the lowest grade 
 Of mind, first manifestation made; 
 And it essential is to life, 
 In all the struggles of its strife; 
 To reach the highest of desires, 
 That inward prompt ambition fires 
 Of character, this trait of mind, 
 In all, essential we will find 
 In union with the higher powers 
 Of character, as reason towers. 
 
140 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 WHY THE FEMALE IS PHYSICALLY WEAKER. 
 
 TO heights of love, — Love drags them down, 
 Where greatest selfishness surround; 
 'Tis seen in female for her young; 
 The farthest down where life begun, 
 Her love with that of self arose 
 In growth of mind, — We see in those 
 Of female sex, this weaker strength. 
 Divided 'twixt herself — at length 
 In offspring — made her to succumb 
 To selfish male, the stronger one. 
 Why ? because the selfish he did feed 
 While she divided with her seed; 
 A higher trait of mind was brought 
 Down to the level of his thought; 
 That only he devoured to bring, 
 The elements all unto him; 
 And this is why the female race 
 In lowest life had weakest place; 
 She must have love to feed her young 
 And share with it 'till they become 
 Strong enough to her devour 
 In muscle of a stronger power; 
 If she had only stopped to feed; 
 Herself, then life could not succeed; 
 For she her offspring would devour, 
 As sometimes seen the present hour, 
 The male w T ill feed himself on those, 
 Of offspring, where the selfish'grows, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 141 
 
 The strongest trait of his in mind, — 
 As animals some sorts and kind 
 To-day we see — In time to grow, 
 And leave the selfish plane below, 
 Whereon the higher traits can build 
 Of character by growth instilled. 
 To-day the race is weak because, 
 That higher man has from this cause, 
 Protected her weakness, from his love, 
 Until she has not raised above 
 Primeval stage in this, to show, 
 Development to higher grow; 
 And in heredity to-day 
 Has cultivated in this way; 
 As if 'twas life's best part to be 
 So delicate, instead of free 
 To grow in perfect life's full powers; — 
 Supporting stronger minds than ours; 
 Then would the race like ripened grain 
 Standing upright, in sun and rain, 
 Bear perfect grain to grow and be 
 Rich harvests of humanity. 
 By the unfoldment of this part 
 Of mind upon the first to start 
 Makes her now superior, in love nature 
 Her mind first gaining, this love feature; 
 When in concert action all, 
 When every trait of mind once small, 
 Will: be full grown, then active strength, 
 Will raise above this vale at length; 
 
I42 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 And love and peace we grow into, 
 Is nearer God — whose love is through 
 The whole, in perfect unison; 
 Because in perfection, He is One; — 
 As harmony in all the spheres, 
 Wherein unchanging law appears; 
 That though we struggle in the strife, 
 And growing ag*». of active life, 
 Meets it in waves of thought unknown 
 To its disturbance so outgrown; 
 Is God in its life Central Force. 
 
 HARMONY. 
 
 THROUGHOUT the whole the moving source; 
 That though a planet should explode, 
 The laws of space would move the same, 
 And not a ripple you could name, 
 Would mar its smooth and even sea 
 That comprehends eternity; 
 Only in compensation waves 
 The elements all discord saves; 
 Where great disturbance doth arise 
 The elements to equalize, 
 Throws back a sameness on the one 
 Whose action was the cause begun; 
 As action and reaction vies 
 The elements to equalize. 
 But these experience lessons teach, 
 That all intelligence can reach, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 143 
 
 And feel whatever right to do 
 Where it again comes back to you; 
 M Do unto others as you would 
 That they do unto you " is good. 
 This compensation touches all 
 Where actions and reactions fall. 
 Such laws of harmony throughout, 
 Cannot injustice bring about; 
 If harmonious we would move, 
 In all the elements of love, 
 And peace that fills the whole sublime 
 Beyond the strife of smaller mind, 
 Love and justice must combine. 
 
 INVISIBLE DISTANCE. 
 
 THIS distance that with life is full 
 Would still exist the same if all, 
 Were not within it great and small; 
 As much as arteries would flow, 
 The blood to veins and backward go, 
 In circulation moving on, 
 If every atom out were gone; 
 That in the blood-like atom worlds, 
 Around and 'round each other whirls. 
 So all in space disturbs not Him, 
 Whose presence fills unending space 
 With life and motion every place; 
 A system of perpetual power, 
 And life unto the present hour; 
 
144 THE LYRI C OF LIFE. 
 
 That we behold before us all 
 
 The presence of both great and small; 
 
 The universe of moving worlds, 
 
 That 'round and 'round each other whirls; 
 
 Thus all existing, what is the cause ? 
 
 But life and its unending laws; 
 
 Embraced in system — moving true, 
 
 Invariable — all motion through 
 
 In which we live, and do partake 
 
 Of all its nature — systems make; 
 
 As atoms of " That Whole " we view — 
 
 This system was, long before you. 
 
 Of which your system grew to be 
 
 A symbol of the whole in thee, 
 
 Though we could never God become, 
 
 Nor could we ever grow to one, 
 
 For parts, could never whole embrace, 
 
 We would be atoms still in space, 
 
 Compared to what the whole must be, 
 
 Embraced in all Eternity, 
 
 Whose central force moves all around, 
 
 His larger system — so profound. 
 
 We symbolize from atom source, 
 
 The universe of central force. 
 
 All atoms have a central power, 
 
 As seeds resemble tree and flower, 
 
 In v/hich their life has formed a part, 
 
 As offspring like its pulsing heart; 
 
 So we resemble the " All Source," — 
 
 Our atom life has central force. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 145 
 
 DUALITY OF ONE. 
 
 AND if two things in one unite; 
 As two eyes blend into one sight; 
 Or two lobes of the brain produce 
 One blending of a mind in use; 
 So God this universe unfolds, 
 Two forces which its system holds, 
 To equalize as one we see, — 
 That active and reactive be. 
 Male and female we call its power 
 In motion as it rises higher, 
 These forces then we have in our 
 Motion, of one mind to grow, 
 And we resemble Him then so; 
 One universe, one mind remain, 
 Of dual elements the same, 
 The dual one, may both express — 
 The two that forms them more or less. 
 The universe one mind of motion 
 Express two forces in equal proportion, 
 All Father and all Mother love 
 That fills all Presence, here and above. 
 The positive and the negative course, 
 Must be the male and female force 
 Of Life, expressed in us unbalanced power, 
 Of elements that contra move 
 In atoms showing hate and love; 
 
 K 
 

 146 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 These all are tending more and more, 
 
 To equalize and one restore; 
 
 From two in parts to equalize, 
 
 One mind power that exactly vies, 
 
 In perfect balance of the one 
 
 When all into perfection come; 
 
 And ruled by love the perfect law 
 
 When all move where attractions draw; 
 
 As all the planetary force 
 
 Moves 'round one distant central source, — 
 
 Perfection in the universe. 
 
 For love doth like attraction draw 
 
 And this overcomes all other law; 
 
 And move in harmony to one, 
 
 Where love's attraction does become 
 
 The power that moves all things we see 
 
 Around one force — Immensity. 
 
 And so our minds may yet progress 
 
 To that perfection more or less, 
 
 That harmony of thought and love 
 
 May be the height attained above; 
 
 Where dominant hate enters not in 
 
 To be the product of a sin, 
 
 When we all error can release, 
 
 Will not the mind reach that of peace, 
 
 When we all undeveloped — leave, 
 
 Then harmony you will perceive. 
 
 For hate was once predominant thus 
 
 As selfishness was first in us, 
 
 Hate predominating destroys, 
 
 And love with balanced power is joy; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 147 
 
 In dual one both as one vies, 
 
 In happiness to equalize. 
 
 When perfect love in growth attains; 
 
 As worlds of harmony explains, 
 
 Then sweet " Nirvana " is its joy, 
 
 Unchangable without alloy; 
 
 A joy that thrills the soul in bliss, 
 
 Of ecstacies unknown in this; 
 
 Where we beginning strive to know 
 
 What we can reach as on we grow. 
 
 But no beginning, we can see 
 
 If circles are Eternity; — 
 
 As higher risen into one — 
 
 Attract into the next begun; — 
 
 The Universal Whole, combined, 
 
 Impregnated with a force of mind. 
 
 Or magnetism we would call, 
 
 That's made of atom minds through all, 
 
 And forms a substance so refined 
 
 That 'tis unseen we call it mind. 
 
 But Undivided Whole must be 
 
 Of mind — All Presence Personality; — 
 
 A dominant mind the same as we. 
 
 Our magnetism is atom minds 
 
 Resembling us — and it combines 
 
 In force unseen, that we expel; 
 
 But still an undivided mind have we, 
 
 Embraced in our personality; 
 
 And by analogy we say 
 
 The universe is this same way. 
 
148 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 An Omnipresent Mind is one 
 
 Thought, through all we see begun; 
 
 Every plan doth harmonize 
 
 In construction earth and skies; 
 
 As if one harmonizing thought 
 
 Throughout the whole each thing has wrought. 
 
 The form of man arteries and veins 
 
 Shaped like a tree — this thought explains 
 
 That does alike each thing express, 
 
 The same in all things more or less; 
 
 Great trunks and branches have each one, 
 
 Each will in contents, each become, 
 
 Through their relationship, will twine, 
 
 In tracery of sprays so fine, 
 
 And what the arterial tree contains, 
 
 Soon flows within the tree of veins; 
 
 As fine as moisture of each atmosphere, 
 
 Absorb one, from the other, here, — 
 
 One little universe of soul, 
 
 With many systems in its whole; 
 
 All moving in one power of mind, 
 
 As worlds and systems one combined; 
 
 As if one Universal Whole, 
 
 Alike expressed all things One Soul, 
 
 In its foundation principles; 
 
 Again, bodies round you see expressed 
 
 In all construction more or less; 
 
 The planets round and things we see 
 
 Are atoms round composing thee; 
 
 In all combined that man compose; 
 
 The head and eyes are round with those 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 149 
 
 Of atoms that combine to make, 
 
 The muscles if a chart you take 
 
 Of the anatomy, and compare 
 
 You find a sameness in us there 
 
 Of shapes of leaves, clusters of fruit, 
 
 Astonishing in its pursuit, 
 
 How much each part of us compose, 
 
 The shape of fruit and flowers, as those 
 
 That on the world's round body live; 
 
 Enrooted life, from germs that give 
 
 Themselves at first from air around, 
 
 The germs that in all space abound; 
 
 And mostly seed is round in form, 
 
 Before it bursts and life is born 
 
 Out of it, to more high express, 
 
 A form to feed its loveliness. 
 
 A force in space all present reigns 
 
 Invisible like mind remains, 
 
 Attracts around all things we see 
 
 It expressed, as drops will be 
 
 Shaped at once, round like a world 
 
 Or bubbles sport, or liquid hurled 
 
 From tower height melted lead will fall 
 
 Through space, and each drop form a ball; 
 
 It shows One ever present mind, 
 
 Expresses every thing combined, 
 
 Near a world, at least we see; 
 
 Unless world's magnetism it should be, 
 
 It may be, for far out in space 
 
 The feathery snowflake- stars embrace; 
 
150 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Yet flowers of snow they may be true, 
 
 As star-shaped flowers we often view. 
 
 A force invisible doth draw 
 
 In space, an action called a law 
 
 Harmonious motion everywhere, 
 
 One mind in nature would compare, 
 
 As undivided whole must be 
 
 This mind of Omnipotency, 
 
 And that its fullness moves the whole, 
 
 As mind in us expresses soul. 
 
 From this we claim that God must be 
 
 All present Personality, 
 
 For things this nature to express, 
 
 And we the parts of all the rest, 
 
 That does His energy compose 
 
 The forces that throughout all flows, 
 
 As in us magnetism combines, 
 
 Composed of substance — atom minds; 
 
 We have beside in us you see 
 
 This mind of our identity; 
 
 That every part of us embrace; 
 
 You cannot touch the smallest place 
 
 Upon our surface, but it will be 
 
 Made known to our personality; 
 
 And its infringement we expel, 
 
 If we are normal we can tell; 
 
 And always feel a perfect form 
 
 That to this feeling will conform; 
 
 This is our personality; 
 
 Unchangeable identity. 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 151 
 
 Besides the forces of life motion, 
 
 The product of the will and strength 
 
 Expressed in will may reach in space 
 
 In distance from us to entwine 
 
 Hypnotic states — the fruits of mind; 
 
 This proves a substance — so you see 
 
 Composed of atoms it would be, 
 
 Of atom minds — in nature-force, 
 
 A substance unseen like its source, 
 
 Of which our offspring may be known 
 
 Their minds resembling much our own, 
 
 And be the foundation of a life 
 
 That through unfolding enters strife, 
 
 When they in person grow to be, 
 
 From atom personality; 
 
 It seems a proof that we enfold 
 
 Magnetic substance atomic, 
 
 Because this substance, like the rest 
 
 Of substance, is a thing expressed; 
 
 Must be like others if we find 
 
 The substance gold — or like the mind; 
 
 Then if gold may atomic be, 
 
 Why not this magnetism, which we see, 
 
 Be atom minds, that this express, 
 
 A substance it is like the rest, 
 
 Only invisible like mind, 
 
 Its nature is of finer kind, 
 
 The invisible, the unseen. 
 
152 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 ANALOGY OF SUBSTANCES. 
 
 THERE are other substances I could name, 
 That are invisible the same, 
 Electricity a substance call, 
 If generated in a ball; 
 Invisible it too might be 
 Conducted where you do not see; 
 And yet as substance it would fill 
 Enough, sufficiently to kill; 
 And you could sense that this could be 
 A substance finer than you could see; 
 Might be atomic, like the rest 
 Of substances have been expressed. 
 Each atom of this electricity 
 Would be an unseen personality; 
 And what inherent it contained, 
 In growth of self would be explained; 
 And in a body act as force; 
 Like nature of the mind, of course. 
 A material substance you will take, 
 And call it atomic because it will break 
 In parts, invisible substances such we find, 
 (Except the personal of mind,) 
 The substance that a magnet fill 
 Will separate, and it will still 
 Be in the knife-blade to attract, 
 And in the magnet both will act; 
 The same in substance, the same kind, 
 And separate, where it combined 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 153 
 
 Within the magnet — to the blade; 
 
 And both have the same power displayed; 
 
 Attract the needle, so you see 
 
 If you can reason things must be 
 
 Atomic, because apart they break, 
 
 Then this invisible must make 
 
 Itself atomic, just the same; 
 
 As material substances explain. 
 
 It is much finer than material 
 
 This attraction force ethereal; 
 
 Through material it will go 
 
 The needle floating this will show, 
 
 This force will draw through it the same. 
 
 Attraction — spirit force is plain; 
 
 Passes through substances material, 
 
 Just like substances ethereal; 
 
 Atomic this substance must be composed, 
 
 In the magnet — as thought that flows 
 
 Into the material of another 
 
 And hypnotize them with its force, — 
 
 A substance — both must be, of course, 
 
 As much as gold or any gem 
 
 That is called atomic by all men. 
 
 It binds as strong as cords can bind, 
 
 This substance given by the mind; 
 
 Then why should thought not be expressed 
 
 As something atomic, unless 
 
 It should prove that we could be 
 
 Eternal in individuality — 
 
 Eternal because we ever were 
 
154 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 An individual mind before, 
 
 In forces that doth never change 
 
 In all the universal range. 
 
 So personal would ever be 
 
 When added life power came to thee, 
 
 Expanding in identity, 
 
 And growing larger than before 
 
 Into all life proportions more, 
 
 And added power 'till we could be 
 
 Conscious, and surroundings see; 
 
 Because life motion in all breathing, 
 
 Drew in the elements perceiving; 
 
 When it in contact with the mind 
 
 Came as two forces, to combine; 
 
 The product of this combination, 
 
 Resulted in the thought creation; 
 
 And mind acceptance did create 
 
 The motion that it was awake; 
 
 And when rejecting, mind would sleep, 
 
 And mind its self-protection keep, 
 
 The same as it had been before, 
 
 Ere breathing action added more — 
 
 An ever growing power to mind, 
 
 As through material it did shine 
 
 Through the five senses leading to 
 
 This mind, secreted from all view, 
 
 Because " Dame Nature " does express 
 
 The life force in concealment dressed, 
 
 In self-security to rise 
 
 Upward slowly in disguise, 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 155 
 
 Until it could by feelings know, 
 
 Through pain and pleasure, how to grow. 
 
 The life of seeds she binds in shells, 
 
 And then the fruit around them swells, 
 
 So in the richness of decay, 
 
 A self-support from it — they may 
 
 Find — to make their body grow, 
 
 Concealed within its life — we know. 
 
 So Nature cares for all her own; 
 
 By " Mother Nature " she is known, 
 
 And us she folded in her care 
 
 Before we grew to what we are, 
 
 And ever still she watches yet, 
 
 And gives us that which life protects; 
 
 If we instinctive thought extend 
 
 To her, us great assistance lend, 
 
 To free us from disease and pain, 
 
 If we instinctive power retain, 
 
 And listen to the forces round 
 
 Us, so vision can be found 
 
 To guide our life in truthful ways, 
 
 And lengthen out our earthly days. 
 
 Just think one moment, if our air 
 
 Should different elements compare, 
 
 A little more from what they are, 
 
 United now, we might be far 
 
 From health, or even might not live, 
 
 Such perfect system she doth give 
 
 Of life to us, — Then think if we 
 
 Will not be hers eternally; 
 
156 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Our mother to us in all time, 
 
 With love as I confer on mine, 
 
 That are my children — only three, 
 
 While hers doth fill Immensity; 
 
 And mine can never know the love 
 
 That draws me to them or the care 
 
 That follows them — yes everywhere; 
 
 Until to theirs they do transmit, 
 
 Their love, can they ere know of it. 
 
 So great Mother Nature folds 
 
 Us in Her love, the care she holds, 
 
 Around our life's primeval hours; 
 
 The same to all life trees and flowers, 
 
 She holds them in the tiny seed, 
 
 Or germ life 'till they can succeed; 
 
 And then she holds her loving care, 
 
 To still supply them with the air, 
 
 That everywhere the world through space, 
 
 In orbit goes the air replace, 
 
 She holds invariable to fill 
 
 The atmosphere with forces still; 
 
 That will our life and health supply, 
 
 If we with reason will comply; 
 
 She makes us feel what is our need 
 
 Of elements to best succeed; 
 
 That more each individualize, 
 
 The more they gain to make them wise 
 
 These are the lessons Nature teaches, 
 
 What's best for us within our reach, 
 
 If we would soon and better grow; 
 
 The mind must gather in and know; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 157 
 
 Learn all that mind can best express, 
 And give like freedom to the rest. 
 
 IS NATURE CRUEL? NO. 
 
 IF no atom ever was void, 
 No life can ever be destroyed. 
 Nature is not expressed in all, 
 Her united beauty, in this small 
 Domain of ours, where we may live, 
 It may be parts where Nature give 
 To us the thought of selfish power, 
 Where life some other life devour. 
 But taken with the whole might be 
 As some parts of our mind you see, 
 Might just for illustration say, 
 Destructiveness might work this way. 
 Taken as one part, motive power 
 And this part only see devour; 
 But if united with the whole, 
 This part be One — of purest Soul 
 Combined with others, Nature be, 
 The kindest mind electrically. 
 Suppose you lived in Nature where, 
 Benevolence was only there 
 To say how kind is Nature seen! 
 This is kind Nature! true I ween! 
 You see to know of Nature's Soul 
 We must combine as One the Whole; 
 

 158 THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Then we might change our mind and say, 
 
 That Nature held not cruel sway. 
 
 But we would deem — 'twas all life's power, 
 
 Of undevelopment the present hour; 
 
 That all were on the selfish plane, 
 
 Because survival life — would gain. 
 
 Life is growing evermore, — 
 
 Higher elements explore; 
 
 What was once a mystery 
 
 Knowledge finds, the causes see; 
 
 So the mind in higher states 
 
 Of wisdom, learns what life creates, 
 
 And in its progress upward climbs, — 
 
 Finds out the future home of mind, 
 
 And its relationship that draws 
 
 Us with connected bonds and laws; 
 
 The mind power reaches out in space 
 
 Invisibly, — its upward place 
 
 Reaches us here, and thought is flown 
 
 From minds invisible, are known 
 
 The worlds beyond and homes of light — 
 
 Their records — have moved hands to write, 
 
 In inspiration long ago 
 
 And do to-day as all must know. 
 
 T 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 HE Holy Spirit came to man 
 In all the distant time before; 
 
THE LYRIC OF LIFE. 159 
 
 And now He comes the same to you 
 As He has come in days of yore. 
 
 But 'tis in voices of the ones 
 We love and they have gone away, 
 To dwell in heaven's glory where, 
 There never comes a parting day. 
 
 •They come to tell you that we live 
 «In all the time that's yet to be; 
 
 They come to teach to all mankind, 
 
 The truths of immortality. 
 
 That's sure to welcome all that live 
 In fairer worlds of life and light; 
 And lift the mind to new desires 
 Out of its own primeval night. — 
 
 Darkness in which all growth begins 
 To upward leap, for air and sun; 
 So they have come to bring the light 
 Of purer worlds to every one. 
 
 They come when scientific thought 
 Unfolds the mysteries that were; 
 And reason dares to search the cause 
 Of everything that does occur. 
 
 And from the lessons of the past 
 We find life's problem they've begun, 
 For us to solve and learning more 
 Of truth for eighteen ninety-one. 
 

 
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