UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 ROBERT ERNEST COWAN
 
 tlr- 
 
 \f>
 
 
 AN EPIC 
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 
 
 THOMAS L. HARRIS. 
 
 PARTRIDGE & BRITTAN, 
 
 342 BROADWAY. 
 1855.
 
 TITO \f.\S L. HARRIS, 
 
 '201 William SlrecL
 
 TS 
 
 W- . I 
 
 277201
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE ordinary and familiar operations of the human mind are gener- 
 ally accepted as the measure and standard of its normal activity and 
 capacity. Accordingly, whenever the faculties exhibit unusual intensity 
 and power, or are exercised on subjects which far transcend the range 
 of popular thought, even the noblest efforts are regarded as abnormal 
 eccentricities. It was long since proved i. e., if the vote of the major- 
 ity can settle a question of this nature that the multitudes who occupy 
 the plane of the common mind are preeminently compos mentis. Having 
 no decided mental and moral qualities to distinguish them one from 
 another, they conclude that they are free from angularities, and are 
 most symmetrically developed. Being self-constituted judges of others 
 as well as of themselves, they assume the right to decide who is crazy 
 and who is devilish. They seldom or never question the senses nor the 
 judgment of those who are free from new ideas ; but the man who 
 dreamed last night of the next grand discovery, whether it be a new 
 continent, another planet, or an additional motive power, is treated as a 
 visionary this morning, though the day may realize all that his dream 
 foreshadowed. The world regards its own ; and in every age the man 
 who has approved the existing government, however oppressive, who has 
 revered the established religion, however corrupt, and defended the 
 prevailing philosophies and customs, however (superficial and absurd, has 
 been the accredited example of human consistency, and, it may be, the 
 oracle of the people. The most devoted worshiper at the shrine of art, 
 the wisest philosopher, the founder of a new science, and the advocates 
 of the latest and the noblest reforms are often treated as mere enthusi- 
 asts, and accused of profaning the altars and dishonoring the memory 
 of the dead. Men of sense are weary of the repetition of this solemn,
 
 11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 senseless farce ; but it furnishes knaves with congenial employment and 
 fools with agreeable entertainment, and so the play goes on. The in- 
 spired teachers of every age and nation in whose souls the thoughts of 
 angels and the revolutions of earth and time are born have been de- 
 rided and condemned, and still the thoughtless world in its rude and 
 sensual delirium scourges, incarcerates, and crucifies its benefactors and 
 its saviors ! 
 
 The idea is exceedingly prevalent, even now, that the world is chiefly 
 indebted to a diseased action of the human mind for the results which 
 have contributed most essentially to enlighten and exalt mankind. The 
 proudest monuments of art, the discoveries in physical science, and the 
 progress in mental, moral, and spiritual philosophy, no less than the airy 
 visions and ideal conceptions of the poet, have been the legitimate off- 
 spring of those who were denominated dreamers, until the great thoughts 
 which eluded the grasp of cotemporaneous millions were simplified and 
 systematized for the instruction of the common mind. Those who give 
 birth to divine ideas are anathematized, while those who incarnate the 
 same in material forms of use are respected. The world is alike stupid 
 in its judgment and blind in its idolatry. The miserable hypothesis by 
 which Materialism attempts to solve the problem before us, lies in our 
 way, but it may be speedily dissected and removed. It is conjectured 
 that a morbid irritability of certain portions of the brain occasions great 
 functional intensity and power ; hence the convergence of mental forces 
 as exhibited in the production of the mind's most enduring memorials. 
 Thus it is virtually assumed, that only those who creep on the earth ex- 
 hibit a healthy activity and a normal development. If one has a dispo- 
 sition to ascend into the ethereal realms, or is gifted with a power to 
 unlock the secrets of Nature and unveil the mysteries of the Heavens, 
 he is at once presumed to be physically and mentally diseased. It is a 
 fact, that not only the medical faculty, but most men, have been wont to 
 regard the powers of the somnambule and the clairvoyant, whether 
 naturally developed or induced by artificial processes, as the product of 
 existing nervous derangement, or of some temporary cerebral excite- 
 ment. They attempt to dispose of all modern spiritual experiences in the 
 same manner, and thus strike at the foundation of all revelations, an- 
 cient and modern, and at the common faith of the world. Thus the 
 clearest proofs of the Divine origin, creative power, and cxal'ed destiny of 
 the human mind are ascribed to disease ! But is the mind most potent 
 when the whole man is sick? and are its highest objects obtained when
 
 INTRODUCTION. lii 
 
 its laws are infringed and subverted ? Must it become delirious to solve 
 the problems which mock the calm and orderly exercise of its powers ? 
 Is it the prerogative of the mind to dive and not to soar 1 And are only 
 madmen commissioned to unfold celestial harmonies and to bring the 
 kingdom of peace on earth ? No ; it is not so. It requires no argument 
 to satisfy the rational mind that the highest achievements of which 
 man's nature is capable will be realized when he acts consistently with 
 the laws of his being. The mind can only exhibit its greatest power 
 when left to its normal action, for then there is no resistance, but all its 
 energies cooperate and tend to the same result. We must not abruptly 
 conclude that the ordinary operations of mind, as illustrated in the com- 
 mon pursuits of men, are altogether consistent with the laws of its consti- 
 tution, merely because they are most familiar to us. Such, a conclusion 
 is conformable to our self-love rather than to the truth. And if we can 
 not rationally accept the familiar operations of mind as indicating the 
 measure and the mode of its legitimate exercise and normal capabilities, 
 away goes the stupid and degrading assumption that its noblest gifts are 
 dependent on some corporeal derangement rather than on God, and its 
 own immortal faculties as exercised in the realm of spiritual relations 
 and divine activities. 
 
 The remarkable powers of the human mind, as developed in men of 
 genius, or displayed by the seers and prophets of all ages, may be ration- 
 ally referred to a kind of natural inspiration and spiritual influence, of 
 which the mind may be, and, indeed, must be, receptive in the higher 
 planes of its thought and development. We necessarily derive our im- 
 pressions from the principles and objects with which we sustain intimate 
 relations. When, therefore, the mind is profoundly engrossed with inte- 
 rior realities, it is proportionably withdrawn from all the objects which 
 appeal to the senses, and as naturally receives influxes from the realms 
 of the Invisible, as at other times it perceives the presence and distin- 
 guishes the forms and qualities of more material creations. Not only 
 may this idea of inspiration be entertained consistently with the laws 
 and relations of the human mind, but it can only be rejected at the sac- 
 rifice of our better judgment. All original thoughts, and every creation 
 of divine beauty and use, may be supposed to emanate from that ideal 
 realm from the Spiritual World. Else why are they born in momenta 
 of profound abstraction, when by intense mental concentration the senses 
 are deadened and the soul is quickened ? Will the materialist tell us 
 why the spiritual element enters so largely into the writings of all men
 
 IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of genius, if it is not that they are inspired ? Why does it predominate 
 in the works of Dante, Shakspeare, Milton, and all true poets, if it be 
 not for the obvious reason, that in the hours of their greatest elevatioft 
 they are essentially removed from the sphere of grosser life, and sub- 
 limated in thought and feeling by association with the hidden principles 
 of nature and the intelligences of the immortal world ? ' 
 
 These views entirely accord with the actual experience and personal 
 claims of the most exalted minds. Scarcely a great poet, painter, sculp- 
 tor, or musician has ever lived who was not conscious of drawing his in- 
 spiration from the Spiritual World, while many have professed to be 
 directly assisted by Spirits. Shakspeare makes the shades of departed 
 men to appear in Hamlet and Macbeth, and he affirms that 
 
 " Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak." 
 
 Many of the characters and much of the imagery of Milton's great 
 poem were derived from spheres which mortal eye hath not seen ; and he 
 thus expresses his faith in the perpetual intercourse between the Spirit- 
 ual and Physical Worlds : 
 
 " God will deign 
 
 To visit oft the dwellings of just men, 
 Delighted ; and with frequent inUrcMurse 
 Thither will send his winged messengers 
 On errands of supernal grace." 
 
 The spiritual idea, and the overshadowing presence and influence of 
 celestial visitants gave Coleridge his inspiration, and, in the light of his 
 faith and philosophy, 
 
 "The massive gates of Paradise are thrown 
 Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild 
 Sweet echoes of unearthly melody, 
 And odors snatch'd from beds of amaranth." 
 
 Coleridge attributed his fragment, " Christabel," to a vision. He 
 awoke with the recital of the poem ringing in his ear, and immediately 
 wrote out what his memory retained. The close of the poem is abrupt, 
 showing that but a part of the vision was recollected ; nor was Coleridge 
 ever able to extend and complete it, in the spirit with which it was begun 
 and carried, thus far. The poem is remarkable enough to have had a 
 spiritual origin and Coleridge firmly believed in intercourse with Spir-
 
 INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 its, as -was some time since shown in an elaborate article published in 
 the " Shekinah."* 
 
 Wordsworth evidently believed that the spirit of prophecy was given 
 to men in all ages, and that the spiritual senses may be quickened by 
 superterrestrial influence. In the preface to the " Excursion" he thus 
 invokes the Divine power : 
 
 " Descend, prophetic Spirit ! that inspires! 
 The human soul of universal earth, 
 Dreaming on things to come ; and dost possess 
 A metropolitan temple in the hearts 
 Of mighty poets ; upon me bestow 
 A gift of genuine insight." 
 
 Michael Angelo employed his genius on religious and spiritual sub- 
 jects, and the grandeur of his gigantic conceptions was sublimely im- 
 aged in the " Last Judgment," and other designs which ornamented the 
 walls of the Sistine Chapel. Raphael, who adorned the Famesian 
 palace with the "Banquet of the Gods," and other similar works, 
 painted visions which were presented to him by the spirit of his mother, 
 who is said to have hovered over him and assisted in the execution of his 
 work. This inspiration from the Spiritual World has not unfrequently 
 conferred on youth a power which the experience of a long life could 
 scarcely surpass. Bernini, of Naples, who has been called a second 
 Michael Angelo, on account of his eminent success in painting, statuary, 
 and architecture, executed one of his great works, Jlpollo and the 
 Nymph, before he was eighteen years old. The artist lived more than 
 eighty years ; but when, near the close of his life, he had occasion to 
 examine this early effort of his genius, he declared that he had made 
 but little improvement in the subsequent sixty years of his artistic 
 experience. 
 
 The following account which Mozart gives of his inspired moments, 
 seems to warrant the inference that his grand musical compositions 
 emanated from the Spirit- world : 
 
 "When all goes well wi'.h me when I am in a carriage, or walking, or when I can 
 not sleep at night, the thoughts ccme streaming in upon me most fluently ; whence, 
 or how, is more than I can tell. Then follow the counterpoint and the clang of ihe 
 different instruments; and, if I am not disturbed, my soul is fixed, and the thing 
 grows greater, and broader, and clearer; and I have it all in my head, even when the 
 
 * " Belied Kejected on Realization," by C. D. Btuart, Stekinah, vol. iii. p. 69.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 piece is a long one; and I see it like a beautiful picture not hearing the different 
 parts in succession as they must he played, but the whole at once. That is the delight! 
 The composing and making is like a beautiful and vivid dream ; but this hearing of it 
 is the best of all." 
 
 It is also worthy of remark, that by some occult agency this great 
 composer was informed of his approaching dissolution. It is alleged that 
 a mysterious stranger once visited Mozart and requested him to compose 
 a grand Requiem. The latter signified his willingness to comply with 
 the request ; terms were proposed and accepted, and the stranger disap- 
 peared. Mozart very soon became deeply interested and absorbed. He 
 felt that he was composing the work for himself. At length the Re- 
 quiem which had occupied more time than was at first anticipated 
 was finished ; the stranger reappeared, but Mozart was not there. By a 
 celestial gravitation the spirit had been attracted to the invisible source 
 of its inspiration ! 
 
 Carlos D. Stuart, who is widely known as an eloquent and forcible 
 writer in prose and verse, assures me that all his poems to which he at- 
 taches any permanent value, have been composed under the influence of 
 a kind of spell, which comes over him at irregular intervals, and sub- 
 sides when the work is finished. Concerning the origin of this influence 
 he has no certain knowledge, but all the mental effort, of which he has 
 a personal consciousness, is made at the commencement of the process. 
 As soon as the poem is fairly started to use his own significant lan- 
 guage " the whole flows out, seemingly without effort, and winds itself 
 up." I can not forbear citing in this connection the testimony of an 
 esteemed correspondent, S. M. Peters, who writes beautiful verses while 
 subject to the influence of Spirits. Respecting the mode and the origin 
 of his poems he says : 
 
 " They are written by my hand, but with little or no mental effort on my part Tho 
 whole of a poem is before my mind at once, and if any person speaks to me while I 
 am writing, it vanishes, and is present again on a subsequent occasion. That this is a 
 spiritual gift, I have no doubt ; for I have no control over it. The name of the Spirit- 
 author is sometimes given, and at other times it is withheld. 
 
 But the specific object of this essay is to introduce to the reader's at- 
 tention the grand rythmical composition which occupies, for the most 
 part, the succeeding pages of this work. The " EPIC OF THE STARRY 
 HEAVEN," which claims to have been originated in the world of Spirits, 
 extends to Four Thousand Lines, and is characterized by vigorous 
 thought, glowing imagery, and felicity of expression. But of its intrin-
 
 INTRODUCTION. Vli 
 
 pic merits, as a specimen of literary art, I do not propose to speak. To 
 the intelligent reader they will appear too obvious to require elucida- 
 tion. It presents other claims, however, growing out of its alleged 
 source, and the peculiar circumstances of its production, which invest 
 it with unusual interest and importance as a psychical phenomenon. 
 These, especially, I design to consider in the remaining part of this 
 Introduction. 
 
 The Poem bearing the above title was spoken by THOMAS L. HARRIS 
 in the course of fourteen consecutive days, the speaker being in a trance 
 state during its delivery. From one hundred and twenty-five to two 
 hundred and fifty lines were dictated at each session, of which there were 
 twenty-two in number, and the precise time occupied in communicating 
 the whole was TWENTY-SIX HOURS AND SIXTEEN MINUTES. On several 
 occasions, while the Epic was being delivered, Mr. Harris was unexpect- 
 edly entranced, under rather unfavorable circumstances, and in two in- 
 stances, as will appear from the Appendix, he was absent from his lodg- 
 ings when the trance occurred. The general appearance and manner of 
 the improvisatore while subject to the influence of Spirits, was much like 
 that of a person in an ordinary magnetic sleep. There was a slight in- 
 voluntary action of the nerves of motion, chiefly manifested at the begin- 
 ning and close of each sitting, or during brief intervals of silence, when 
 some new scene appeared to the vision of the medium. The eyes were 
 closed, but the expression of the face, which was highly animated and 
 significant, varied with every change in the rhythm, and was visibly in- 
 fluenced by the slightest modification of the theme. The voice of the 
 speaker was deep-toned and musical, and his enunciation distinct and 
 energetic. Occasionally he exhibited considerable vehemence, but when 
 the nature of the subject required gentleness, his voice was modulated 
 with great delicacy, and at times his whole manner and utterance were 
 characterized by remarkable solemnity and irresistible pathos. The 
 writer has been personally acquainted with Mr. Harris for some twelve 
 years, but has never witnessed on his part the slightest attempt to sing 
 previous to the delivery of his Epic, portions of which were chanted in a 
 low, musical voice, and with remarkable effect. Moreover, our friend 
 several times remarked, during the progress of the work, that the invis- 
 ible powers seemed to be singing it within him, and that all his nerves 
 vibrated to the music. 
 
 If the reader will refer to the Appendix, he will perceive that the par- 
 ticular Spirits whose presence was disclosed to Mr. Harris, did not,
 
 Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 strictly speaking, communicate the Poem to or through him. This is not 
 pretended. It is merely claimed that they used their influence doubt- 
 less in harmony with existing psychological laws to entrance the me- 
 dium, and that when the state of interior perception and consciousness 
 was induced, his spirit by virtue of this inward quickening or opening 
 of the interiors was brought into intimate relations with the essential 
 principles, invisible forms, and immortal inhabitants of the Spirit-world. 
 While in this condition it may be presumed that he was as well qualified 
 to obtain correct information respecting the sphere to which he was thus 
 admitted, as men in the external state are to receive reliable impres- 
 sions from the outward world. Thus the primordial elements or arche- 
 typal images of the thoughts embodied in this grand Epic were commu- 
 nicated to the receptive spirit, and the process of their reception was 
 undoubtedly as strictly NORMAL* as that by which the forms and qual- 
 ities of outward things are perceived through the ordinary avenues of 
 sensation. 
 
 In the judgment of the present writer, these claims accord as well with 
 the facts in the case as with the principles of a rational philosophy. It 
 is well known that the ordinary somnambule, and, indeed, every person 
 endowed with a faculty of prevision or a power of clairvoyance, is quali- 
 fied to perceive and comprehend many things which wholly transcend 
 the mind's capacity, while it is restricted to the sphere of its mundane 
 relations. The most startling illustrations of this truth are of daily 
 occurrence. I once knew an unlettered youth ; he was totally ignorant of 
 all the sciences, and yet in ten minutes, even by the aid of a human mag- 
 netizer, he became a sage was familiar with different languages, and at 
 home in every department of scientific philosophy. Fools jeered at him, 
 but wise men wondered at his wisdom. Not only did he exhibit a famil- 
 iarity with the profoundest principles of Nature and the various acquisi- 
 tions of the human mind, but there was no limit to his vision. The most 
 solid substances were transparent as ether ; immeasurable distances op- 
 posed no barrier to his observations ; the forgotten Past was unveiled 
 before him, and he had power to unlock the mysterious Future, and to 
 read from the page of destiny ! 
 
 It must be apparent to the philosophic mind that this familiar process 
 of introreception whereby the sublime realities of the Spiritual World are 
 
 * We use this word to represent whatever occurs agreeably to existing Physical and 
 Spiritual Laws.
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 being disclosed to many exalted minds, does not differ very widely from 
 the personal experience and distinctive claims of Mr. Harris. In the 
 lives of the illustrious prophets, illuminated seers, and inspired poets, of 
 all ages and countries, there is much to support the credibility of his 
 pretensions, as set forth in this volume. At the same time I believe 
 there is no recorded instance of the composition of a work of equal mag- 
 nitude and merit in so short a time. In this respect the present illustra- 
 tion of the power of improvisation is more remarkable than any thing 
 which I have been able to find in literary annals. D'Israeli, in his 
 " Curiosities of Literature," cites numerous instances of the rapid com- 
 position of brief pieces by different poets ; but none of the utterance of a 
 complete work of any moment. Fenelon wrote his " Telemaque" (prose 
 history of the wandering of the son of Ulysses in search of his lost 
 father) in three months, one of the most rapid performances on record. 
 D'Israeli also alludes to a class of visions or revelations, current in the 
 middle ages, claimed to have been uttered by superior powers, through 
 studious monks and recluses, and adds that Dante's " Inferno," called 
 " Divine" has been suspected of indebtedness to a poem known as " The 
 Vision of Alberico." Probably of prose writers'and poets, in the ordi- 
 nary state, no one can be cited equal to Alexander Dumas for rapidity 
 yet Mr. Harris' composition, setting aside its quality, excels the 
 greatest rapidity of Dumas. The " Culprit Fay," by J. Rodman Drake, 
 a deceased American poet, a production of singular beauty, but more 
 remarkable because, though lengthy, no human character enters into it, 
 was a very rapid composition ; but it is less than one half the length 
 of Mr. Harris' Epic ; besides, it is far less remarkable in regard to the 
 rapidity of its creation, and immensely inferior in character and pur- 
 pose. 
 
 As to Italian and other improvisator es, it is on no good authority 
 claimed that they have ever risen above brief rhapsodies, generally con- 
 fined to local and momentary topics to chivalry and love. The Trouba- 
 dours were song singers of this sort. The Italian improvisatores are 
 regarded as the very best, and to none of these can we find credited any 
 effort worth remembering for a day. Improvising of this kind has gener- 
 ally been a play upon the names and peculiarities of persons, or on the in- 
 cidental circumstances of the occasion. We have heard maudlin specimens 
 at political and other assemblages in this city and elsewhere, but they 
 have been, without a single remembered exception, as ephemeral as the 
 incidents which prompted their utterance. Altogether, the present 
 1*
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 work, admitting its claims with respect to the time and mode of its com- 
 position, has no parallel in either ancient or modern literature. 
 
 What is here and elsewhere stated respecting the time employed in 
 delivering the Poem, can be established by the testimony of witnesses 
 whose credibility can not be impeached, and whose veracity was never 
 questioned. The claims of the Poem, in this respect, can only be assailed 
 by assuming that Mr. Harris had previously and at his leisure, com- 
 posed his Epic, and committed it to memory, and then went through 
 with the farce of rehearsing it before the witnesses. This would be vir- 
 tually charging him with a contemptible artifice, which no one will be 
 disposed to credit who has the slightest knowledge of his character. 
 Only those who deem it wise to boldly deny what unprejudiced minds 
 frankly acknowledge, will entertain the assumption for an hour. Never- 
 theless, to remove the doubts of those who have had no personal acquaint- 
 ance with Mr. Harris, as well as to silence the cavils of a material skep- 
 ticism, several incidental facts and circumstances may still be adduced 
 to show that the hypothesis in question is altogether impi'obable. 
 
 For some days immediately preceding the date of the first interview, the 
 time and attention of Mr. Harris was almost unreservedly taken up with 
 a new invention in the department of mechanical art, which Avas emi- 
 nently calculated to divert his mind from its accustomed channels. The 
 subject which occupied his thoughts at this time, being of a purely ex- 
 ternal and practical nature, Avas of course 511 adapted to promote the 
 execution of such an ideal and spiritual work as the present volume 
 contains. Moreover, at the very time when the Poem AVUS unexpectedly 
 commenced, Mr. Harris was preparing to leave New York for the South, 
 and the few days that were expected to intervene prior to his departure 
 were, as he and his friends conjectured, to be exclusively occupied in ar- 
 ranging preliminaries for his journey. From Nov. 24th to Dec. 8th 
 embracing the entire period employed in the composition of the Poem 
 his mind and time were so far engrossed with the business already refer- 
 red to, as to leave but little opportunity for other pursuits. It Avas under 
 these apparently inauspicious circumstances that he was entranced from 
 day to day usually from one to tAvo hours at a time and the work was 
 continued to its consummation. Sometimes the mystic spell came sud- 
 denly when he Avas absent from home ; or, it might be, while he was 
 eating, or conversing with his friends on foreign topics. Those who Avit- 
 nessed the recurrence of the state were by no means inclined to think 
 that the phenomenon of the trance was merely subjective, or that the
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 times and seasons were left to the volition of the medium, inasmuch as 
 they did not in all cases appear to be opportunely chosen. 
 
 Another fact should be stated in this connection. During the progress 
 of the work H. was on several occasions magnetized by Spirits, and gave 
 a number of shorter poems, some of which were extremely beautiful in 
 thought and versification ; and these, like his Epic, appeared to require 
 no mental labor, nor were they attended by the cerebral excitement 
 which always accompanies and succeeds a voluntary effort of his own. 
 It is well known to the intimate friends of Mr. Harris that he ordinarily 
 finds it extremely difficult, if not quite impossible, to sleep for some 
 hours after any considerable intellectual effort ; but, night after night, 
 after delivering some two hundred lines or more of the present work, he 
 would, on retiring, immediately relapse into a profound and peaceful 
 slumber, which usually continued unbroken until a late hour in the 
 morning.* 
 
 But it may be objected in view of what is said in the Appendix 
 respecting Mr. Harris' vision in March, 1850 that the Poem was first 
 announced nearly four years since, and that this admission is not com- 
 patible with the claim that it was produced in a few hours. The writer 
 is of a different opinion ; and without presuming to determine precisely 
 how long the invisible agents were employed in their part of the work, 
 it may be confidently asserted that the agency of Mr. Harris in its pro- 
 duction was limited to the brief period already specified. This conclu- 
 sion is abundantly supported by the facts in the case ; nor is there any 
 thing in the accounts of Mr. Harris' vision which warrants a contrary 
 opinion. An angel appeared to him having a sealed book ; and the Spirit 
 presented before him " an illuminated landscape," etc., together with a 
 number of " minute hieroglyphical figures," the first of which was un- 
 derstood to represent the present Poem. Beyond this H. received no in- 
 timation respecting its significance, as no portion of the same not so 
 much as the title was communicated on that occasion. 
 
 But there is still another circumstance remaining to be mentioned, 
 which strongly favors the idea that H. had formed no plan of his own, 
 and, indeed, that he had no definite conception of this work up to the 
 time when he commenced its delivery. The PROEM, which contains 
 some ninety lines (it is not comprehended in any thing that we have 
 
 * The writer can speak confidently on this point, as he occupied the same sleeping 
 apartment with Mr. Harris, not only before and afier, hut during the delivery of the
 
 Xil INTRODUCTION. 
 
 before said of this work), was given in a similar trance, several weeks 
 or months before, while the medium was in Virginia. Having no idea 
 of its specific adaptation to any thing that was to succeed, it was given 
 to us for a collection of miscellaneous poems, which will be issued here- 
 after. We first published it in the TELEGRAPH, and then, at the request 
 of Mr. Harris himself, it was stereotyped for the volume of miscellanies 
 here referred to. It was not until a large portion of the Epic was deliv- 
 ered, that our friend ascertained or even suspected that the Proem was 
 intended to be used as the rhythmical introduction to this work. With 
 these facts before us, it is supremely preposterous to conclude that the 
 substance and structure of this Poem previously existed in any clearly 
 defined form in the mind of Mr. Harris. He can not be so utterly 
 regardless of his own reputation and interest, to say nothing of honor 
 and conscience, as to willingly resort to the most palpable hypocrisy and 
 falsehood, merely to deceive his best friends and to ROB HIMSELF OF 
 THE CREDIT OF ITS AUTHORSHIP. Such a conclusion is improbable to 
 the last degree, and it is not likely that any sane man will cherish it for 
 a moment. 
 
 Some days after the Epic was completed, an incident occurred one 
 evening in presence of a number of persons assembled at the residence 
 of Mr. Partridge which will interest the reader, at the same time it 
 will afford additional confirmation of the spiritual claims of the Poem. 
 Among the persons present was Mrs. J. R. Mettler, who is distinguished 
 for her clairvoyant and psychometrical powers. Psychometry being the 
 theme, Mr. Harris, in the course of the conversation, went to his room 
 and procured a slip of paper, on which he had previously during the 
 delivery of the Epic been impelled to write the name, DANTE. [The 
 chirography, which was wholly unlike that of the medium, was executed, 
 as Mr. Harris firmly believes, by Dante himself. A spirit, dressed in 
 antique costume, appeared standing before him. He felt a strong desire 
 to know something of this immortal visitor, when his hand was suddenly 
 controlled, and the name was written.] Folding the paper into a small 
 compass, and in such a manner as to entirely conceal the name, Mr. 
 Harris, without giving any explanation, placed it in the hands of Mrs. 
 Mettler for her impressions. In a few moments the psychometrist was 
 profoundly entranced.* At first she exhibited emotions of sadness and 
 
 * In givin? psychometrical delineations of the characters of persons living in the 
 body, Mrs. Meltler is seldom or never entranced, but it is alleged that the written eom- 
 niunications of spirits invariably induce this state.
 
 INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 grief. Then rising and walking toward a remote corner of the apart- 
 ment, her eyes being closed, she appeared to hold converse with invisible 
 beings. She paused, and seemed looking at objects beneath. Her whole 
 frame shook spasmodically, and the muscles of the face were distorted 
 and convulsed, as if the images of the " Inferno" were passing visibly 
 before her. At length she spoke with uncommon emphasis, and we caught 
 the following words : 
 
 "No! no! I am not mad! I am not mad ! Keep me in bondage, if ye will. Are 
 
 ye fiends? ye hellish bigots of earth, curses! [a pause] nay, blessings be upon yom 
 heads. [Here Mrs. M. raised her head, and appeared to be looking into the heavens; 
 the muscles of her countenance gradually relaxed, a sweet smile irradiated her fea- 
 tures, and she continued.] Bright angela hover in the upper air; they smile on me, 
 and their presence gives me peace." 
 
 Mrs. M. continued at some length in a strain that led those of the 
 company who were acquainted with Dante's history to think that she 
 was en rapport with his spirit, and that visions of his earth-life, and of 
 the Divina Commedia were passing before her.* 
 
 An objection may arise founded on the well-known capacity of Mr. 
 Harris. It is readily conceded that he is a poet of very brilliant powers; 
 but this does not invalidate the peculiar claims of the present work. 
 What if other poets have written books of equal merit and greater mag- 
 nitude, they required months or years, instead of a few hours, to com- 
 pose them. Further, we do not know that our poetical friend, up to 
 
 * That all our readers may perceive the relevancy of Mrs. Mettler's words, while in 
 psychometrical contact with the Italian poet, a very brief sketch of his life seems to be 
 required in this connection : 
 
 Dante was born at Florence, In May, 1365. Hla family was illustrious, and after attracting the at- 
 tention of his countrymen by his own military achievements, he became still more distinguished by 
 the honors bestowed on him at court. At length, by the suffrages of the people, he became one of the 
 
 one of the rival parties, which led to his banishment and the confiscation of his estate. Some five years 
 before Ms death, it was proposed by the government to restore him to his country and his possessions 
 on certain dishonorable conditions. He was required to pay a fine, bow before the authorities of the 
 ohurch, and at its altar confess his guilt and supplicate the pardon of the Republic. But the noble 
 pint of Dante spumed the base proposal. He preferred a life of physical bondage and the grave of an 
 outcast to the freedom of his country, the honors of a court, and the possession of his estate, if these 
 were only to be purchased at the expense of truth, justice, and manhood. 
 
 No way was ever opened for Dante's return which was at all compatible with his own high sense of 
 honor ; and after remaining in exile nearly fifteen years, the great poet died at Ravenna, in 1321. 
 When the Florentines discovered the magnitude of the sacrifice they had made. It was too late to re- 
 trieve their en-or. 'Jlie man whom they had so ignobly driven from his home aud country, tmuu be 
 came the object of their highest veneration, and they vainly entreated that they might be allowed to 
 pouess all save his immortal thoughts and deathess memory that remained of Dauto lib) ashi* !
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 last November, had ever published or composed a single poem that 
 exceeded two hundred lines ; and there is certainly no evidence what- 
 ever, derived from existing facts, to prove that he is capable of such un- 
 exampled rapidity in composition. 
 
 Again, if it be contended that the style of certain portions of the Epic 
 resemble some of the earlier productions of T. L. Harris, in the composi- 
 tion of which no spiritual agency was claimed or supposed to exist, my 
 reply is, it is altogether rational to conclude, whatever may have been 
 the source of the inspiration, that it would naturally and necessarily 
 accommodate itself to the channel through which it was permitted to 
 flow, and that the same is true in its application to all inspired teach- 
 ings, of whatever nature or kind, not excepting those which possess at 
 least in the faith of the Christian world a sacred preeminence and a 
 divine import.* 
 
 The great realm of the SPIRITUAL opens around and within us in pro- 
 portion as our natures are refined and exalted. The thoughts which 
 startle the world with their vastness, power, and beauty are not born of 
 corporeal elements. On this point we must respect the actual experi- 
 ence of inspired minds rather than the skepticism of those who are inca- 
 pable of any similar experience. The latter class should be reminded that 
 it is as truly the privilege of the eagle to soar, as it is the province of 
 meaner things to crawli The dusty speculations of material philos- 
 ophers, on a question of this nature, are entitled to no credence, since 
 they are obviously as destitute of truth as they are devoid of all incen- 
 tives to heavenly aspiration and a divine life. If such men have no in- 
 tercourse with superior intelligences, the fact shows clearly enough that 
 they themselves are earthly and sensual ; but it does nothing to prove 
 that others are like them, much less that the common faith of the world 
 is to be regarded as an illusion. 
 
 Here we submit the claims of this book to the judgment of the public. 
 No phenomenon of a similar character ever awakened a deeper interest in 
 our own mind, and we feel assured that the Poem will be read with sat- 
 isfaction and delight, not only by Spiritualists, but by thousands who may 
 hesitate to credit its peculiar claims, and be disposed to accept it merely 
 as a brilliant effort of human genius, excited and exalted by the intense 
 action of its own immortal powers. 
 
 S. B. BR ITT AIT. 
 NEW YORK, January 25M., 1S54. 
 
 * See an article entitled, " Cerebral Influence oiHjRevelation ;" SteMna!/., vol. ii. p. 89.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 FROM THE LYRICJ 
 
 SEVEN great diversities of human genius enter into the composition of 
 the votary of High Art : the Sacerdotal, the Mathematical, the Synthetic, 
 the Analytical, the Poetical, the Inductive, and the Intuitive. The pro- 
 duction of artistic chef-d'ceuvres depends upon the happy combination 
 and seven-fold harmony of these distinctive elements. 
 
 There is, at the present time, a grand refining process operative from 
 the Heaven of Spirits, and quickening as well as purifying the natural 
 ultimates of human organizations. Organisms, by means of the operation 
 of this refining process, are being prepared to serve as artistic instruments 
 through whom the sacerdotal, the mathematical, the poetic, the synthetic, 
 the analytical, the inductive, and the intuitive revelations, combinations, 
 and productions of Divine Harmony shall be communicated from the World 
 of Causes, which is Spiritual, and gloriously made manifest among men in 
 the World of Effects, which is the Natural or External Earth. 
 
 The medium through whom the work of which this is the preface, is 
 given, though still in an exceedingly feeble condition, is inborn into the 
 Spirit-World, by means of which birth he is enabled to occupy a mediato- 
 rial position between the world of causes and the world of ultimates. And 
 because his interiors are of a sacerdotal character, he is permitted to be 
 impressed from Societies of Hierophants who discharge the priestly func- 
 tion in the Heaven of Spirits. And because in his interiors he takes de- 
 light in celestial mathematics, he is permitted to receive impressions from 
 Societies of Spirit Men who meditate deeply upon the science of forms, 
 number, degrees, and their correlatives, though externally his knowl-
 
 XVI. PREFACE. 
 
 edge of mathematics is limited. And because of poetic genius of an in- 
 terior character, which he 1ms externally cultivated to some degree, re- 
 lations are established between his mind and the children of immortal 
 song, who are known as Lyric Angels. 
 
 The work which this statement is designed to preface originated in th 
 interior. It is given through the agency of a circle of Mediaeval Spirits 
 who inhabit a classic domain in nn ultimate dependency of the Heaven 
 of Spirits, which corresjMmds in many of its features to lower Italy. 
 
 It is their delight, in that serene realm, to weave Epic Poems, which, 
 while they are divinely true in the internals of thought, are externally 
 beautified with the embellishments of melody, and thus resemble the 
 virgin daughters of the sky, whose spiritual forms are garmented with 
 Iho robe* of light, whoso abundant tresses exhale the very fragrance of 
 Kly*ium, and whose brows arc crowned with undying flowers. 
 
 II waa permitted to a spirit greatly beloved among the inhabitants of 
 that ethereal abode* to induct the medium into rapport with the general 
 uphere of their society, which sphere is extended into all the lovely re- 
 gions visited by the inmost spirit of the medium, and shadowed in the 
 Poem. Permission being obtained from Superior Authority, the various 
 forma of wisdom and beauty which the Poem describes were imaged, 
 from thoir varied localities*, upon the sensorimu. by the process of tran- 
 nition and visitation, and the organ of language quickened an I m-i K use 
 of for the harmonic reproduction of these forms of truth and loveliness 
 In th< external dialect of earth. This Poem, however, is .1 production 
 ndaptc\l to the spiritual childhood of the medium : and when his interior 
 ftu-vilU shall Imve l<een more highly vitalised and laor* luminously ex- 
 panded, ho l dosMgnod s an instrument fvvr the production of volte of 
 A iuun o oomnipAndent tally exalted. 
 
 IWn t ho jyoutly . Reader ; ttnne thy he*rt to pore and taring tho|rhts 
 while perti*iu# h>* >piri*l uMeriKx. for thus alone the interior life, 
 nhioh U the ltin mul (hemVT, ahall find entrance into Oun* *wn into-
 
 PROEM. 
 
 PREPARATORY VISION. 
 
 THE inspirations of my youth retui 
 
 Love, Wisdom, Beauty, Joy, and Liberty 
 
 The ashes of my life, requickened, burn ; 
 
 Gloom, sickness, years depart. My soul is free 
 
 The great procession of the Wise Departed, 
 
 In solemn vision glorifies my sight. 
 Though all who live were old and broken-hearted, 
 
 Youth, Love, and Hope would change their hoary night 
 To freshest morn, with sun-illumined brow. 
 Could they behold and live, as I do now. 
 
 Oh, Earth ! oh, Time ! oh, Man and Woman! ye 
 Shall from your wintry dying freshly rise. 
 
 Death's hungry heart, that like the moaning sea 
 The freight of shipwrecked life with food supplies,
 
 18 PROEM. 
 
 Cries from its liollow depths, " No more, no more." 
 Death sits, calm browed, upon the snow-white shore 
 In love with Immortality, whose breast 
 Pillows its form to its eternal rest. 
 
 Now Death is pillowed on the lap of Life, 
 
 And dies in happy dreams. There is no Deep, 
 Hungry and dark, with agonizing strife, 
 
 To swallow up Love's argosy, and sweep 
 All the great Past into its sunless caves. 
 God smites the tomb, and saith, " Ye hollow graves 
 So still and secret, ope your lips and tell 
 The Nations that My children do not dwell, 
 Nor fade, nor crumble in your drear abyss, 
 But share the vast dominions of My bliss." 
 
 God's heavens to earth have spoken. In the glow 
 Of the New Era's dawning it is sweet 
 
 To wake and see dull Night from Nature go. 
 The cycle of the ages shines complete. 
 
 Man came from God ; he goes to Him again. 
 
 From Him came down to Him aspires the flame 
 
 The friendly Angels ope Love's Eden door ; 
 
 Man enters in departs not ever more. 
 
 The seers and saints of all the centuries past 
 Have set their seal unto the sacred page
 
 19 
 
 That images sweet peace and promise vast 
 
 Heaven's beauty, and the new, delivering Age. 
 Hark, music sweet ! from yon immortal train ; 
 They sing " We hoped, loved, labored, not in vain." 
 
 The rocky Patmos where I dwell recedes 
 The outward fades. Lo, in immortal trance 
 
 I spring to light. A mighty Angel reads 
 
 My heart, mind, gladness, wonder, at a glance 
 
 " Fulfilled, O Son, thy trial hour," he says. 
 
 Upon my soul the immortal light-beam plays. 
 
 Into the Heaven of Spirits I am led ; 
 
 On mountain summits they are throned apart. 
 The Empires of the Free are widely spread, 
 
 Temple, shrine, palace, angel-peopled mart, 
 Where glorious thoughts and mighty deeds are made 
 
 Sky, landscape, city, music, splendor, shade ; 
 Where the heart's inner loves, in form outrolled, 
 Shine amber skies and atmospheres of gold. 
 
 All life to love in light and rapture tends ; 
 All thought on chariot-wheels of glory runs ; 
 All sorrows, like the rays of setting suns, 
 
 Are made celestial splendors. Far extends 
 The pure domain. Love blends in this bright sphere 
 Hope's longed Hereafter, with her Now and Here. 
 Here kindred souls who dwelt on earth apart
 
 20 
 
 Blend in the sweet embraces of the heart. 
 On the calm shore the happy dwellers throng, 
 Greeting each distant bark with sweetest song ; 
 Homeward they fly, by the swift life-winds driven, 
 And furl white sails upon the shores of heaven. 
 
 The gradual dawn of day upon the earth 
 
 Is wonderful, when from the royal east, 
 Attired in Tyrian robea, the sun comes forth, 
 
 Led by the stars to his Assyrian feast. 
 My soul is like that day-dawn like that sun 
 
 Outrolled into a golden orb of light. 
 I see heaven's vast ecliptic round me run, 
 
 From its own motion made intensely bright, 
 Encircling, with triune Saturnian zone, 
 
 God's inner sphere, perfect, supreme, alone. 
 
 Here let me gather thoughts, as heaven for aye 
 Ingathers all the stars into its day ; 
 And let me form from out their sphere sublime 
 A glorious Poem, fragrant, pure, divine 
 An Epic of the Stars. Be this my theme. 
 Favor my soul's desire, O, Lord supreme ! 
 Give me to breathe a charm, of love so full, 
 That Earth shall from it drink the Beautiful, 
 As angels rapture from Thy infinite 
 Sweet melody of love and love's delight,
 
 21 
 
 And wake to joy, as might a widowed bride, 
 Who, startling, finds the lost one by her side ; 
 Immortal life, love, rapture to her eyes 
 A Bridegroom sun-descended from the skies '
 
 EPIC OF THE STARRY HEAVEN. 
 
 SCENES. Earth; the Seventh Spiritual Sphere of Earth, and the 
 Electrical Ocean of the Solar System between Earth and Mars 
 
 I AM not used to muse upon my ills, 
 Though often troubles on my spirit lie 
 Chill as December snows, obscuring all the sky. 
 
 A softened splendor fills 
 My mind in darkest hours, and in my breast 
 
 Peace Avhispers, " Come what may, thy lot is blest " 
 Beyond the common fate of man below ; 
 The tides of Heaven's great purpose in thee flow. 
 Yet sometimes all my spirit groweth dark, 
 
 And cold, and desolate. Upon me fall 
 Interior pains. My bosom is the mark 
 
 Death aims at. Mournful voices to me call
 
 24 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 For strength, love, pity, guidance, and relief, 
 As the wild \v inds call to the autumn leaf, 
 And I, alas ! am poor and weak as they. 
 Thus it befell me this bleak Autumn day. 
 
 Dark seemed my lonely way, 
 
 And like the dying year 
 I saw my life in sorrow disappear. 
 
 Like a swift arrow shot toward the sun, 
 
 But curving downward from its golden height, 
 And falling low in ignominious flight, 
 
 My upward way seemed closed, my life undone , 
 
 I thought of mighty spirits in their prime 
 Crushed by mankind into disastrous graves ; 
 
 Of gentle goodness trodden down by crime, 
 And Spiritual Freemen gyved as slaves. 
 I saw in vision vast, 
 
 The moldering tombs of the forgotten past. 
 Earth seemed a burning wreck. 
 
 Rocking upon a serpent-swarming sea, 
 Despairing nations crowding on her deck, 
 
 Between the wo that is and wo that is to be. 
 
 " And what," I said, " is being but a Sorrow 
 Waxing and waning through an endless night, 
 
 Pursuing Joy as night pursues the morrow, 
 
 Haunted from heaven by Love's unknown Delight,
 
 8TARRYHEAVEN. 25 
 
 Which it, with wearied hope, forever seeks, 
 And finds not on the heights or in the deeps. 
 
 There came a Spirit from the World of Souls, 
 
 Like sunrise flashing o'er a wintry sea, 
 
 And I looked upward from my agony 
 As a pale Martyr from the burning coals, 
 And said, " Bright visitant, too late, too late ! 
 Leave me, I pray thee, leave me to my fate." 
 I wrapped my face and turned mine eyes away. 
 " Oh, haunt me not," I cried, " for why should Day 
 Mock Night from heaven with calm, triumphant smile, 
 When the poor Night grows wan and dies the while. " 
 
 " I can not leave thee, brother, in thy wo," 
 
 The angel answered ; " while I lived below 
 
 My life, like thine, seemed all a dreary waste ; 
 
 The cup I drank was bitter to my taste. 
 
 Now I am risen. Wake, aspire, ascend ! 
 
 Great shadows all great images attend. 
 
 Mountains, whose peaks in heavenly sunshine glow, 
 
 Cast equal shades upon the plain below. 
 
 Within the shadow of thy own high fate 
 
 Why sit forlorn ? celestial friends await. 
 
 Rise ! clothe thyself with gladness !" As he spoke 
 
 A splendor from the zenith o'er me broke.
 
 26 A N E P I C O F THE 
 
 Earth disappeared, and I arose and stood 
 
 On the bright summit of Earth's Seventh Sphere. 
 I saw the spirit-sky I felt the flood 
 
 Of music lift me to that region clear 
 Of endless morning, where the Man of Sorrows 
 
 Shines from the Infinite, and every knee 
 Is bent in living adoration there, 
 
 And every face immortal glory borrows 
 From His own countenance. The very air 
 Thrilled me with ecstasy, for Love Divine 
 Flowed in it. Through the vastness of that shrine 
 The constellated spirits burned and shone. 
 I bowed in worship at the Spirit-Throne ; 
 And, as I prayed, methought an answer came. 
 My heart impulsed the warm blood through my frame, 
 Till the shrunk channels overflowed, and then 
 Celestial voices breathed a low " Amen." 
 
 A new-born language trembled on my tongue, 
 Whose tones accorded with the singing stars ; 
 
 A company of spirits, blithe and young, 
 From Jupiter, and Mercury, and Mars, 
 
 Drew near and said to me, " Three days, dear friend, 
 Thou art our guest ; come, wing thy blessed flight 
 Through the unvailing ocean of sweet light." 
 I saw this language penned
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 27 
 
 By a bright Angel on a golden scroll : 
 
 " Let heaven be opened for another soul." 
 
 We passed the sphere with swift and winged motion, 
 
 And sped above an atmospheric ocean 
 
 Wherein the planets shone from far to me, 
 
 Like silver mountains in a purple sea. 
 
 Like new-born Thoughts that glow and burn, suspended 
 
 In the vast pantheon of an Angel's mind, 
 All thought with love, all love with wonder blended, 
 
 We rest, and lo ! with vision unconfined, 
 See a DIVINELY HUMAN FORM who stands 
 
 Upon the sun, and holds a diamond rod. 
 
 It is a shadow from the face of God, 
 In-formed in quivering light. Seraphic bands 
 
 Rise from the sun like many-colored rays, 
 
 Chanting around it melodies of praise. 
 
 " Know ye that Angel standing on the sun ?" 
 
 A ministering spirit asks. That look 
 The very look, the great, yet Crucified One, 
 
 Divine with love that Evil could not brook, 
 But turned with all its alien hosts and fled 
 Into the dark dominions of the dead 
 
 That look, whose light o'er darkened Calvary shone, 
 In-streams on me I know it know it well. 
 Not in man's heart doth thy dear likeness dwell,
 
 28 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 O Lord ! alone. 'Tis imaged o'er the dome 
 
 That spans the sun, the bright imperial home 
 
 Of angel-nations, and forever shines, 
 
 Filling with seven-fold light those vast and tranquil 
 
 climes 
 
 Forever beaming there, the Day of day, 
 Whose glory clothes the orb with Love's perennial May. 
 
 Thou Sun, rejoice ! Ye goodly company 
 That round it throng, and fill with harmony 
 Of planetary life, the stellar space 
 Ye too rejoice, run brightening on your race ! 
 Not from the sun alone ye draw your light : 
 
 The great Creator's image stands thereon, 
 Outpouring from your system's inner height 
 
 Such floods of glory, that the horizon 
 Rolls back an evening splendor on the morning. 
 Cease, cease, oh, mortal man, the idle scorning 
 Of the high mystery God in Christ ; for lo, 
 Yon sun His image to the stars doth show, 
 And all the stars from God in Christ derive 
 Their light, and from His life their nations live. 
 
 The origin of Beauty, Love, and Truth 
 Of light, life, motion, and immortal youth 
 Of form, of music, sweetness, and delight, 
 Flashes from God's own Image on my sight.
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 29 
 
 I feel the pulses of the Eternal Soul 
 
 In all my veins. My thoughts within me roll 
 
 Like new-born planets, flushed with happy life. 
 
 My nature is at rest. There is no strife, 
 
 No battle of contending forms above 
 
 Earth and its spheres. 
 
 Know ye the Land of Love 1 
 Its ancient boundaries ? the broad extent 
 Of its illimitable continent ? 
 Where'er worlds bloom and spirit-skies unfold, 
 Outflow its atmospheres of living gold. 
 The Universe is like a silver bell 
 The tongue of time such harmony doth tell, 
 That worlds are formed within the widening sea 
 Of one divine perpetual ecstasy
 
 AN" EPIC OF THE 
 
 fart !to0. 
 
 SCENE. The Electrical Ocean of the Solar System in close prox- 
 imity to the Planet Mars. 
 
 " THERE are seven degrees in the holy Sphere 
 
 That girdles the outer skies ; 
 There are seven hues in the atmosphere 
 
 Of the Spirit Paradise, 
 Arid the seven lamps burn bright and clear 
 
 In the mind, the heart, and the eyes 
 Of the angel-spirits from every world 
 
 That ever and ever arise. 
 
 " There are seven ages the angels know, 
 
 In the courts of the Spirit Heaven ; 
 And seven joys through the spirit flow 
 
 From the morn of the heart till even ; 
 Seven curtains of light wave to and fro 
 Where the seven great trumpets the angels blow ; 
 And the Throne of God hath a seven-fold glow, 
 
 And the angel-hosts are seven.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 31 
 
 And a spiral winds from the worlds to the suns, 
 
 And every star that shines 
 In the path of degrees forever runs, 
 
 And the spiral octave climbs ; 
 And a seven-fold heaven round every one 
 
 In the spiral order twines." 
 
 A company of Spirits, whose white arms 
 Are twined like lilies, float above the deep.. 
 Their music lulls my spirit into sleep.* 
 Lo ! one most beautiful unvails her form 
 My thoughts are drawn to her as dew-drops to the morn. 
 " Oh, rose-lipped Seraph, whose celestial charms 
 O'ercome my being with a calm divine 
 Whose heart of love in love inflows through mine 
 Whose eyes are twin-born spheres that blend together 
 
 As the sweet ocean and the enamored sky, 
 Feeling thy presence dear, I care not whether 
 My being to its primal life returns. To die., 
 To be diffused in love, and made a part 
 Of the divinest Beauty which thou art, 
 
 * The word " sleep" is used in this Poem to signify a state of transition, during 
 which the spiritual senses gradually cease to take cognizance of the scene which 
 previously had been sensorially mirrored upon the mind. Through this process 
 the spiritual senses are being subjectively elevated or transferred into rapport 
 with the ensuing locality, its scenery, its inhabitants, its forms of knowledge, 
 elates of affection, and general spheres of truth, goodness, aud use.
 
 32 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Were better, better far. 
 Where is thy home ? in what beguiling star." 
 
 I hear her sweet reply : 
 " Brother, I am a Daughter of the Sky, 
 
 And I am sent to be 
 A Sister Spirit. I will pilot thee 
 Where Beauty sits in groves of asphodel, 
 And weaves for hearts of love joy's hyacinthine spell, 
 Charming her human flock. Seest thou yon zone 
 Of roseate light ? It is a world unknown 
 By wisest-thoughted seers of the earth. 
 Within its fragrant bowers, 
 Death withers not the flowers, 
 And fierce Despair stings not the breast of Worth. 
 There life is calm and holy ; 
 The rose and myrtle twine 
 
 Round loving brows. The frosts of death and time 
 Fall not upon the angel-maidens there ; 
 But Bride and Bridegroom grow divinely fair 
 Within those bowers of amaranth and moly, 
 
 Counting their years a span, 
 Tho' centuries have pass'd since their sweet life began. 
 
 " Thou happy soul, thou blessed soul," 
 The maiden sings to me.
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 33 
 
 " Come, drink from out the golden bowl 
 
 Of joy, I pledge to thee ; 
 I drink to thee from out the cup 
 
 Of love and love's delight. 
 Rise ! these dear arms shall bear thee up ; 
 Let slumber end thy sight. 
 In sleep alone canst thou be borne 
 
 To that transcendent Land, 
 Where Love hath never learned to mourn 
 
 Or vail her bosom bland. 
 In sleep alone canst thou ascend 
 
 And pass the seven-fold gates ; 
 In sleep alone, oh, spirit-friend, 
 
 Celestial morning waits." 
 
 As sink the drowsy billows of the sea 
 
 When Night is in the skies, 
 So the long swells of thought subside in me ; 
 
 Sleep closes up mine eves. 
 2*
 
 34 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 SCENE. An Eden of Conjugal Affection, situated upon an Islet in 
 the Equatorial Region of the Planet Mars. 
 
 BENEATH what glowing sky, whose diamond hues 
 
 With thought and life unknown delights transfuse, 
 
 And make my body pure and crystalline, 
 
 As if it were the paradise and shrine 
 
 Of heavenly love and wisdom, do I wake ? 
 
 My senses unimagined joys partake. 
 
 The soft air melts like manna on my tongue. 
 
 Fairer than Bard or Prophet ever sung, 
 
 Art thou, young Eden ! By what other name 
 
 Than Eden can I call this floral plain, 
 
 Whose azure waters flow like odorous balms, 
 
 Tongued with sweet eloquence ? Those trees are palms. 
 
 It is an island in an azure sea 
 
 That I am borne to. Overhead I see 
 
 A firmament of alabaster hue,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 35 
 
 Flecked with red rose-leaves, ever falling through, 
 And melting on the air in crimson dew. 
 
 Within this blest retreat 
 
 The Muses have their seat, 
 And Heliconian fountains flow like wine. 
 
 I see an alabaster shrine, 
 That like a fountain changed into a flower 
 Of silver light forms an immortal bower. 
 Each separate drop is like the whitest pearl. 
 
 I see a fair-haired girl 
 
 Throned like young Rafaelle's Virgin, far within. 
 Diaphanous vails of light, rose-hued and thin 
 As the transparent halo of a star, 
 Enfold that wondrous shape. She calls from far 
 With voice like nightingales in bowers of June, 
 When earth, and heaven, and man are all in tune. 
 
 The shrine she dwells in vibrates from her thought, 
 As if its marbles were by angels wrought 
 In harmony and union with the life 
 
 That pulsates in her veins. 
 Her nature is unconscious of all strife ; 
 
 Smiling she sings the strains 
 Of Conjugal delight ; and by her side 
 Her Bridegroom sits, calm-thoughted, splendor-eyed, 
 And inspiration gathers from her song
 
 f AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 And wisdom. Overhead a splendid throng 
 Of halcyon Spirits who are Inspirations,* * 
 Splendors, and Truths, and Joys, and Exultations, 
 Voices and choral Thoughts of Deity, 
 Dwell in rose-hued pavilions in the sky, 
 Whose shafts are spirit-sunlight, and whose walls 
 Are tempered lightning. Swift upon me falls 
 A consciousness that bids my heart disclose 
 A mystery of Love. That blessed pair 
 
 So rosy-fresh and fair, 
 Dwelling within that crystal-builded shrine, 
 
 Have seen the sands of time 
 Drop through the hour-glass of the centuries old, 
 Yet not a leaf hath fallen from Life's red rose, 
 And they forever dwell within their Age of Gold, 
 Unwearied of sweet love, forever blending 
 Their inmost lives in rapture never ending. 
 Their conjugal affection is to them 
 A robe of brightness and a diadem. 
 And they are one forever and forever, 
 In love and wisdom like a blended river 
 
 * Angelic spirits, according to the diversity of their genius, and also according 
 to their interior degree and variety of illumination, are types, in a finite sense, of 
 sublime attributes of Love, Wisdom, and Use of the Supreme Spirit. Spirits of the 
 second heaven are called Strengths, Wisdoms, and Splendors; corresponding 
 spirits in the third heaven, Adorations, and Thoughts, and Voices ; while spirits in 
 tiio highest heaven are called Loves, and Charities, and also Innocences, and the 
 highest (if these, Perfections.
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 37 
 
 Of strength and beauty, whose remote extremes 
 Are interfused, being bound in tempered beams 
 Of God's own brightness ; for the living zone 
 Of God's own Spirit blends the two in one. 
 
 This is their paradise, and, mirrored here 
 In the translucence of the atmosphere, 
 All angel-forms of innocence appear. 
 And, like a crystal river from above, 
 Flows down an effluence of immortal love, , 
 
 Encompassing the twain 
 With harmonies from God's eternal main. 
 For God's great love o'er all who love doth lie, 
 And all who love are stars that beam on high, 
 Bound in the circle of eternity, 
 In-winding till they blend complete, and find 
 Eternal oneness in God's heart and mind 
 Dwelling as forms of truth-m-love within 
 The glory -mantled home of seraphim, 
 O'erspanned by God's own presence, rapt away 
 In endless trances, vailed in the pure light 
 
 Of heaven's all-perfect day, 
 Made finite symbols of the Infinite 
 Whose love and wisdom in them doubly blends, 
 
 And, never, never ends. 
 
 " We all are Lovers in this Land of Gladness ; 
 
 277201
 
 38 A N K P I C O F T H E 
 
 Here discord never grieves the wedded heart. 
 No sense of weariness, no breath of sadness 
 Darkens Love's home. It is the Eden mart 
 
 " Of sweet affections, blooming like the flowers 
 
 That shine with glorious hues from God's own face ; 
 
 Immortal joys from out the blissful hours 
 
 Come forth like stars from heaven and run their race. 
 
 " We all are Lovers in these pure dominions 
 Each mind, each heart, is bridegroom or is bride. 
 
 We soar immortal on ecstatic pinions ; 
 
 Love reigns in all Love, Love the glorified. 
 
 " There is no knowledge save the truth of love ; 
 
 Each truth unto its own dear love is wed ; 
 In dual flight from heaven to heaven we move ; 
 
 With deathless feet the crystal air we tread. 
 
 "Up from our paradise we rise; the gates 
 Of morning open, and the shining Fates 
 Transform us into children ; there we reign 
 New-born we live, mature, and wed again. 
 
 " The glorious company of angels move 
 
 In dual circles of conjugial love. 
 
 From every world within the stellar space, 
 
 Mind seeks its Heart, and Wisdom finds its Grace."
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 
 
 In strains like these the heavenly choir sing on 
 The tones recede the shining train retire. 
 
 And now a second choir 
 Take up the theme, and chant in unison. 
 
 " Star unto star in ethers wed, 
 Heaven is to heaven in marriage led. 
 All Loves and Wisdoms interflow 
 Goodness and Truth commingling glow. 
 
 " And thus material worlds have birth, 
 And thus unfold the flowers of Earth; 
 And thus the golden East renews 
 The glory of its deathless hues. 
 
 " Goodness and Truth in one agree ; 
 
 The pure, harmonious family 
 
 Of wedded spirits evermore 
 
 The God of Truth and Love adore, 
 
 In endless union rising on, 
 
 Till Inmost Heaven is inly won. 
 
 " Lift, lift your raptured voices far, 
 Ye dwellers in the solar star ; 
 Yon sun itself is Love's domain 
 Where wedded angels love and reign.
 
 40 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 " Speak from your silver thrones, and tell 
 Ye planets ; ye are homes as well 
 Of wedded hearts who everywhere 
 Perfume with love your fragrant air. 
 
 " This is Creation's ancient faith 
 Conjugial Love o'erconquers death; 
 And wedded souls from worlds arise 
 To golden nuptials in the skies." 
 
 The Eve of this sweet Paradise 
 Speaks. The love-music of her eyes, 
 The still, sweet music of her inner thought, 
 Reveals unto my spirit. I am brought 
 
 Into celestial rapport with her mind. 
 In ivory palaces of memory 
 The story of her life I, pictured, see. 
 
 Within that sacred inmost there is shrined 
 The image-form of God the God of Love ! 
 The Spirit, who, descending from above, 
 Outbreathes His essence, shaping spirit-natures, 
 
 Whose pure, immortal features 
 Through finite forms reveal the Infinite ; 
 Who breathe, unfold, and blossom in His sight, 
 As roses in the sunbeams of the day.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 41 
 
 God's pulses through this human spirit play 
 Like fire through light or luster from a throne, 
 Brightening from One, who, in Himself unknown, 
 Reveals His Being through creative flame. 
 A naked maiden, innocent of shame 
 (It is the soul of this celestial maid), 
 In lily light of innocence arrayed, 
 
 Shines now upon my vision. 
 
 With what serene decision 
 
 She thinks, loves, wills, and turns to God the Giver 
 Of life's pure breath adoring Him forever ! 
 That calm eternal Presence, shining on, 
 Inspires her being as the outer sun 
 Inspires the earth. Whichever way she turns. 
 Still in her breast the Eternal Image burns. 
 
 The dewy chalice of a thousand flowers 
 That opens eastward in the morning hours, 
 
 An urn of joy o'erflowed with love's pure dew, 
 Were but the faint reflection 
 Of thousand-fold affection 
 
 Unfolding in her spirit to my view. 
 
 The streams of diamond brightness 
 That from the morning lightness 
 
 Flow through the firmament with boundless flame, 
 
 ere but remotest beaming
 
 42 ANEPICOFTHK 
 
 Of the great God-life streaming, 
 
 Through heart, and breast, and every crystal vein. 
 
 The voices, that ascending 
 
 From choirs of doves, and blending 
 
 With summer sweetness, charm the leafy groves; 
 Each to its dearest mated, 
 Each fair one consecrated 
 
 In pure affection to the form she loves, 
 
 Brooding in nests of argent, 
 Swan-like, beside the margent, 
 
 Of azure pools, with lily-chaplets vailed, 
 Or, soaring, lost to vision, 
 Outpouring from the elysian, 
 
 The dews of song celestial roses yield ; 
 
 These are but shadowy dreamings, 
 Or distant image-beamings, 
 
 Of families of loves within her breast, 
 That, like the birds of Aidenn, 
 Thrill that transcendent maiden 
 
 With music sweet, and in her bosom nest. 
 
 Each drop of heart that beateth 
 A kindred globule meeteth, 
 In-blending with it in her breast of snow,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 43 
 
 And through her veins distilling 
 Her loves outflow in willing, 
 And vail her nature in a crimson glow. 
 
 Ten thousand Graces tend her ; 
 
 Like morn in its own splendor 
 She dwells within her outer form serene, 
 
 Making her body heaven. 
 
 Oh, God ! to me 'tis given 
 To see Love's empress ! Beauty's maiden Queen ! 
 
 The inner soul of Beauty's life 
 
 Thy soul, oh ! maiden dear, 
 Outbreathes with holy sweetness rife : 
 
 I drink thy glowing sphere. 
 
 Beyond all thoughts in heaven or earth, 
 
 Heart-sweet, my spirit finds 
 The thoughts that find their seraph-birth 
 
 Within her blended minds. 
 
 Her minds are two conjoined in one 
 
 The Bridegroom and the Bride, 
 As light and heat within the sun 
 
 In blended soheres abide. 
 
 And what the woman thinks in heart, 
 The man in thought conceives,
 
 44 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 And every truth his thoughts impart, 
 The woman's breast receives. 
 
 'Tis a strange mystery that I behold ; 
 A two-fold pulse of silver and of gold 
 Flows in this pure and happy-thoughted breast ; 
 
 Each love by its own wisdom is caressed. 
 
 Her Bridegroom's thoughts within her bosom lie, 
 Wedded in nuptial bowers of ecstasy 
 To her heart-loves. These loves in turn ascend 
 Into the Bridegroom's mind, and in it blend 
 With his interior truths, which rise, receive 
 Each its own love, and in that union live. 
 
 Celestial matrons in the heavens conceive 
 
 Pure forms of soul, that bud, and bloom, and smile, 
 
 Unconscious of a separate life the while. 
 
 These are the germs of spirits, and inflow 
 
 Through father-life and mother-life below, 
 
 And are the inmosts of all children born 
 
 On earths. Tis thus the soul hath its first morn, 
 
 And its beginning in the inmost heaven ; 
 
 And it descends from out the higher skies, 
 
 And, like a bird, flying out of Paradise, 
 
 And finding homely shelter at the eve 
 
 In some lone cot in the vailed world below, 
 
 From highest heaven to lowest earth Joth flow.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 45 
 
 Whom God hath joined no force can put asunder. 
 Annihilation only can destroy 
 The nuptial bower of their immortal joy 
 
 And sacred bliss that vailed, that hidden wonder 
 The Eden of the Heart ! 
 
 Their natures blend, and they are made a part 
 
 Of the Eternal Beauty, Love, and Truth, 
 
 Which lives in them, conferring endless youth. 
 
 I pause. A gradual morning on me breaks ; 
 
 My soul to more interior life awakes. 
 
 I see why Love is endless why the twain 
 
 Conjoined in love can never part again. 
 
 God's Truth is in the bridegroom. By its side 
 
 God's Love is shrined within the immortal bride. 
 
 And Truth and Love, with infinite embrace, 
 
 Each other fold, through heart, mind, form, and face. 
 
 Eve through her Adam feels her God descending, 
 
 And truth-embraced, with blessedness unending, 
 
 Finds inspiration in her Bridegroom's arms, 
 
 Who, in his turn, through her celestial charms, 
 
 The Love of God receives in her sweet love. 
 
 Oh, Father Spirit ! thou art throned above 
 
 All human thought ! yet in the Eden trees 
 
 Of truth and goodness art revealed to these. 
 
 Scorn not, oh, mortal men, this mystery !
 
 46 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 Ye think the Eternal Spirit in the Past 
 Through wood and stone revealed His presence vast 
 Thrilled the mute marble with His touch, and shone 
 From out a burning bush His servant's sight upon. 
 Surely thy God, who stirred the insensate dust, 
 
 And walked amid the billows of the sea, 
 Can thrill the sainted bosoms ofthe just 
 
 Ope their interior sight, and make them see 
 Himself descending to the inmost shrine 
 Of mind and heart, in truth and love divine. 
 
 'Tis written in the scroll the Heavens believe, 
 And taught in their bright synods, that the Lord 
 
 With wedded souls who in sweet gladness live, 
 
 Dwells radiant, making there His presence known 
 Writes on man's mind the tablet of His Word, 
 
 And forms in woman's heart a seraph-guarded throne.
 
 STARKY HEAVEN. 47 
 
 fart |ffttr. 
 
 SCENE. An Eden of Maternal Affection, situated upon the East- 
 ern Portion of the same Isle. 
 
 ANOTHER scene is pictured on my brain ; 
 
 A shower of golden rain 
 Calls me to outer consciousness again. 
 
 The former spell is broken, 
 
 Once more I am awoken ; 
 I see the smiling flowers, and breathe the fragrant balms, 
 
 A company of Angels, 
 
 Each one of whom resembles 
 The Virgin Mary, sit beneath the palms ; 
 
 Each nursing in her bosom, 
 
 A bud of soul in blossom, 
 Like the Child Jesus in the ancient time. 
 
 Their radiant faces glisten 
 
 They sing. Oh, let me listen 
 To the maternal hvmn their voices twiuo.
 
 48 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 " Sleep, children, sleep, young innocent immortals, 
 
 Wafted from heaven into our loving arms ; 
 Sleep with your faces turned to heavenly portals, 
 Lulled by melodious charms. 
 
 " We welcome you to our terrestrial being, 
 
 Lovely immortals, vailed in irifpncy. 
 God, Father, Thou our inmost hearts art seeing, 
 Lift these young souls to Thee." 
 
 The children as they sleep 
 
 Are taken from their mothers ; 
 Angels from heaven's clear deep, 
 Like sisters and like brothers, 
 Shine through the golden morn, and bear 
 The happy infants higher, higher 
 
 To where 
 
 Pale rivers of celestial fire 
 Flow down into the natural sky, and roll 
 Around the world pure love-spheres that the soul 
 Can bathe in. These young infants they baptize 
 In the auroral effluence of their skies. 
 Each infant now, clairvoyant, wakes and sings 
 In the clear dawn, unfolding sphere-like wings 
 Of golden flame, instarred with beauty. Hark ! 
 Each infant spirit, like a glowing spark 
 A star of love, whose light is melody 
 Sings, warbling in the ether calm and high,
 
 STARRS HEAVEN 49 
 
 " There are children in the heaven 
 
 Who on earth were spirit-men ; 
 Through their love they have arisen 
 
 To their infancy again. 
 
 " There are children now descending 
 
 To their outer life below, 
 To receive a joy unending 
 
 As through Nature's gates they go. 
 
 " There are children white and golden, 
 
 In the heaven of light above. 
 In the arms of angels holden, 
 
 And enamored of their love. 
 
 " We have fathers and have mothers 
 
 In the spirit and the form ; 
 We have sisters and have brothers 
 
 Undescended from their morn. 
 
 "We are rising, we are rising, 
 
 To the God from whom we came ; 
 
 In our innocent surmising 
 
 We have found His inner name. 
 
 " Sure the God of all the moving 
 In our inner life must move ; 
 3
 
 50 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 And the Father of the loving 
 Hath a name and it is Love !" 
 
 Ye infant spirits that in outward shape 
 Of sovereign beauty pure and consummate, 
 Appear revealed in outer time and space, 
 Each an incarnate essence of all grace, 
 How angel-wise ye are how sweet ye sing! 
 
 I see them circling in a spiral ring 
 Around an Angel-Woman who descends ; 
 Each child another angel overbends. 
 The angels lift the infants in their arms ; 
 Their rapt eyes feed upon immortal charms. 
 And now they bear the infants tenderly 
 To their terrestrial mothers, who have fed, 
 Meanwhile, upon ambrosial fruitage, spread 
 Before them by young Bridegrooms, xvho delight 
 And rapture in the heart-revealing sight. 
 
 " 'Tis an ideal picture that we draw," 
 
 Man on the Earth will say, when this he reads, 
 Turning celestial flowers to idle weeds. 
 
 "Nay, Friend! there is no dark, destructive law 
 Of malformation in that realm serene, 
 Whose image through this epic verse is seen. 
 Humanity, that on thy planet lies
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 51 
 
 Prostrate, unfolds 'neath fairer skies, 
 
 In fairer forms ; and love's immortal arms 
 
 Fold noble hearts to unirnagined charms ; 
 
 And childhood there, through wedded love unfolded, 
 
 Like the Child Jesus, beauty-formed and molded, 
 
 Gladness indraws from the young mother's breast ; 
 
 An angel tends, and 'tis by angels blest.
 
 52 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 SCENE. A Spiritual Templerin the Spiritual Heaven of Mara. 
 
 I SEE a flock of silver-breasted doves 
 Resting upon a crimson-blossomed tree. 
 Those doves have human voices melody 
 Expressive of the soul's interior loves. 
 
 They sing amid 
 
 The leafy covert, and from sight are hid 
 By the harmonious river of sweet song. 
 To whom, fair doves, to whom do ye belong ? 
 " To her," they sing, " who led thy spirit hither." 
 " Where has she fled ?" my spirit cries, " oh, whither ? 
 Under what happy shade does she recline 1 
 
 Beside what blue-veined lake, 
 Whose wavelets from her face reflection take 
 
 Of Beauty so complete, 
 That the still waters thrill with pleasure sweet ? 
 
 Or on what solar cloud,
 
 STARRY HE AVE\. 53 
 
 Is she upborne amid the sky 
 Where angel-hosts triumphant sing aloud 
 Anthems of worship to the Deity ? 
 Or was she but a lovely Exhalation 
 Of thought divine, whose vails of amethyst 
 Melted away in viewless, fragrant mist, 
 
 Her mission being done ?" 
 
 " I hear thee call me, thou beloved one ; 
 
 Thy sister-angel comes. These doves are mine ; 
 
 I am the Spirit of yon rosy shrine. 
 
 Wouldst know my history ? 
 My beating heart shall syllable to thee 
 The periods and the changes of my nature." 
 
 Saying this, she called an antelope, a creature 
 
 Thin-flanked, dove-eyed, with hoofs of crimson jet, 
 
 And pointed upward with her moon-like hand, 
 
 And made a circle in the silver sand, 
 
 And said unto the fawn-like creature, " Fly !" 
 
 A golden-sandaled Spirit then drew nigh, 
 
 Like young Apollo of the mythic story, 
 
 Worshiped as God of light when Greece was in her glory. 
 
 A silver crescent on his forehead shone ; 
 
 His lips were like a luminous ruby stone. 
 
 His silken mantle, by the wind out-blown, 
 
 Revealed a form of matchless symmetry,
 
 54 A N E I 3 I C O F T H E 
 
 Blue as earth's dome. 
 
 Now smiling turned to me 
 My lovely guide, and said, 
 " Seest thou yon fields of splendor overhead ? 
 
 There is my home ; 
 And I have sent my swiftest antelope, 
 
 Whose path is like a sunbeam o'er the foam 
 Of the white ether, and he climbs the slope 
 Of the ethereal mountains, and ascends 
 Bearing these tidings to immortal friends, 
 And tells them thou art coming. Thou wilt hear 
 Soon such rich voices in the atmosphere, 
 
 Thy soul will ne'er forget." 
 
 " Am I in Fairy Land ?" I said. " The nights 
 Of the Arabian Fable are exceeded. 
 My soul in labyrinthine splendor winds 
 
 And egress nowhere finds. 
 Wonder by new-born wonder is succeeded. 
 
 My mind in these far flights, 
 Is like an humble sparrow or a lark, 
 That, following from below the sun's bright bark, 
 Loses itself where rainbows blend, and sparks 
 Like fleeting fire-ships glimmering through the darks, 
 Sail round the fragile wanderer's unknown track, 
 And worlds disclose themselves amid the wrack 
 Of half unreal, half immortal shadows.
 
 STARR VHKAVEX. 55 
 
 Yon antelope of thine in these rich meadows 
 Pastured a moment since, a dust-born thing, 
 Now he through ether flies, yet hath no wing. 
 What means this ?" 
 
 " Brother, dear," the maiden said, 
 " In thine own Sacred Book hast thou not read 
 That all created forms in God's first plan 
 Were made subservient to the mind of man ? 
 How even the fretted beast of burden spoke ?" 
 
 " Yes," I replied. Another wonder broke 
 Upon my sight. The antelope drew near, 
 Bearing a winged child, a messenger, 
 Sent from the heaven, to be the harbinger 
 
 Of a celestial train. 
 I looked above and saw an ivory fane 
 Unvailed amid the firmament serene, 
 Like that great temple which young Athens built 
 
 To Wisdom's Goddess-Queen. 
 Its thousand shafts and sculptured walls were gilt; 
 A thousand cressets burned with seven-fold glow, 
 'Mid its high portal, waving to and fro 
 
 With alternating flame 
 
 Of green, and gold, and crimson. Then a strain 
 Of loud and glorious music rose and filled 
 The air. 
 
 Sharp pangs my kindling spirit thrilled ;
 
 ;",6 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 For joy intense above my nature's power 
 
 Streamed through my heart like sunrise through a flower. 
 
 With new-born senses quickened I grew strong. 
 
 1 heard the inner wisdom of the song 
 
 Which like a river through its entrance poured. 
 
 My spirit like an eagle rose and soared 
 In the rich sea of music. I ascended 
 Higher and higher till my flight was ended. 
 In the great temple welcomed, I forgot 
 All that I had been all that I was not. 
 
 I stood within the temple, and I thought, 
 This is a work of God's divinest art. 
 By no created mind, no angel, wrought, 
 But 'stablished in the super-stellar mart 
 Where angels congregate, to be for them 
 As to a king his royal diadem, 
 The crown of all completeness. 
 
 Then I saw 
 
 A vision of Immortal Souls, and found 
 In each a sovereign spirit, throned and crowned. 
 Are these the Gods, and this their Pantheon ? 
 A vibrant " No," full spoken by each one, 
 All my nerved being like an aspen shook. 
 " Hast thou not read in thy ' Most Ancient Book,' "
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 57 
 
 A mighty spirit said, " One God above 
 Creation reigneth and His name is Love ! 
 We are the Angels of the lower heaven, 
 
 Unconscious of all guile. 
 We reign as kings ; and unto us 'tis given 
 
 In solemn state, apparent for a while, 
 To shine upon thy mind, imprinting there 
 Wisdom for thee to breathe. 
 
 Our words declare : 
 
 Tell what thou seest as to thee 'tis shown. 
 The Heaven around thee is a Spirit Zone. 
 Within the circle of our ether glows 
 A lovely planet. Tis the planet Mars." 
 
 Saying this he paused ; then said, " There are twelve stars 
 
 Superior Planets in the solar scheme, 
 
 Blooming as crystal lilies on the stream 
 
 Of solar effluence. Thou shalt yet behold 
 
 The Silver Heaven and the Heaven of Gold, 
 
 And afterward shalt visit that high fold 
 
 Of Love in Wisdom, whereunto no man 
 
 From thine own earth has risen since time began. 
 
 Meanwhile, from this bright altitude of thought, 
 
 Since thou wast to us for that purpose brought, 
 
 We will instruct thee." 
 
 Here the speaker ends. 
 Immortal Wisdom with my spirit blends ; 
 3*
 
 >J8 A N E P I C O F T H E 
 
 I am uplifted bodily ; my brain 
 
 Seems opened filled with light and closed again. 
 
 Like a clairvoyant angel, I behold 
 
 God nature spirit splendors manifold 
 
 Of archangelic and cherubic form. 
 
 Into immortal wisdom I am born. 
 
 I stand in thought upon a pinnacle ; 
 
 Visions of deathless love my being fill. 
 
 The snow-white atmosphere of angel-light 
 
 Impermeates my brain and purifies my sight. 
 
 There are seven links from God to man ; 
 There are seven links and a three-fold span, 
 And seven spheres in the great degree 
 Of one created immensity. 
 
 There are seven octaves of spirit-love 
 In the heart, the mind, and the heavens above ; 
 And seven degrees in the frailest thing 
 Though it hath but a day for its blossoming. 
 
 (>:m , iiluiJ-jtfcfiy/' .;;." - i <V m T-uJ '|O 
 There's an outward, an inward, and inmost shape 
 In every thing that our God doth make ; 
 All outward forms from the inward roll, 
 And the inward lives from the inmost soul ; 
 But the God of the Universe Three in One 
 Is the Soul of soul and the Sun of sun.
 
 S T A R R Y H E A V E N . 59 
 
 Music and love are but life in motion 
 Truth is the sky of the heart's deep ocean. 
 Rapture and mirth and the joy of man 
 In the rounded bliss of our God began. 
 
 He is the Lover, and loveth all ; 
 He is the Splendor whose glories fall 
 Downward and downward, until they rest 
 In the planet's heart and its starry vest. 
 
 One is the Cause, and the end like Him. 
 
 He wills, and the worlds from his thoughts outswim. 
 
 And the worlds grow bright 
 
 With a spirit light, 
 
 And they bloom with soul 
 
 As they glimmer and roll. 
 And the Eden gardens where lovers dwell, 
 Tranced in sweet joys they alone can tell ; 
 And the kingly states of the free and bold, 
 Whose minds are silver and hearts are gold ; 
 
 And whose thoughts are like horses of white that draw 
 
 The glowing car of the holy law ; 
 
 And the pure affections that glow and live 
 
 From the inner life that our God doth give ; 
 
 And the solemn temples that share duration 
 With man himself in his generation,
 
 60 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 And rise unfolded in sculptures fair, 
 Like epic hymns through the fragrant air ; 
 
 And the kingly glories of time and space, 
 And the lovely hues of the human face, 
 And the solemn swells of the human heart, 
 Fired with the presence and theme of art ; 
 
 And the wondrous charms of song divine, 
 And the rapt musician's heaven-taught line, 
 And the tinted beauties and statues grand, 
 From the Painter's eye and the Sculptor's hand 
 
 And the high revealments of Sages wise, 
 And the vision vast of the Prophet's eyes, 
 And the boundless joy that is everywhere 
 In the stars, and the suns, and the fields of air ; 
 
 And the breathing beauties of field and flood, 
 Outspring from the Mind of the Perfect Good, 
 And they blend and shine in the perfect whole, 
 And live from the One Creative Soul. 
 
 The slightest flower that opes below 
 From the smile of our God receives its glow, 
 And the highest angel's countenance beams 
 From the great Creator's presence-gleams.
 
 S TARRY HEAVEN. 61 
 
 Yet 'tis said by the darkened, earth-bound mind, 
 That God doth man's freeborn spirit bind, 
 And crushes the brain to the narrow thought, 
 By the outward senses forged and wrought. 
 
 In the great audience-chamber of the Spirit, 
 The Inner Temple that the Pure inherit, 
 Freedom unlimited, the right of Thought, 
 Is God's own mandate, to all spirits taught ; 
 He who to spectral shadows bends the knee 
 Abjures the worship of the Deity ; 
 And those who kneel to creeds of human thought, 
 Deny the faith in heaven to angels taught. 
 
 In all the wide ecliptic's golden ring 
 "One Truth, One God," inspired archangels sing; 
 " One Truth, One God," all spirits pure confess, 
 And all the tortured mind's unknown distress 
 Comes when 'tis smitten by the burning rod 
 Of slavery forged by man disowned by God. 
 
 Blessed are all the Free. 
 Nursed on the mother-breast of Liberty, 
 They draw great-thoughted wisdom from her life. 
 They learn that Peace is better far than strife, 
 And in the silver zone of right intent 
 Their ordered lives are intersphered and blent.
 
 62 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Blessed be God for Freedom ! without it 
 The Universe were but a smoking pit 
 Of torture, terror, madness, and despair. 
 In the great feast of freedom all men share, 
 Whose lives unfold in harmony with truth. 
 Joy, beauty, inspiration, deathless youth, 
 Pure poet-vision, prophet-sight, and skill 
 To shape inferior nature to their will, 
 And love so deep the soul may gaze into 
 A golden ocean blended with the blue, 
 And see therein an endless beauty-maze 
 Where the celestial sun reflected plays ; 
 And gladness, like a rainbow that ascends, 
 And all the radiant being overbends ; 
 And endless-growing virtues, summer-sweet, 
 Rich as the fruits immortal angels eat 
 All these to Freedom's followers are given ; 
 They are the loved of God, and theirs is Truth's own 
 heaven. 
 
 When the Great Spirit whom our fathers knew 
 Completes man's restoration, earth shall see 
 
 Celestial heavens shine through 
 The outer sky's unstained, untroubled dome, 
 As, through cerulean vails, a great white throne. 
 All forms of life their morning shall renew, 
 And men with two-fold vision then shall gaze
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 03 
 
 On two-fold splendor, and immortal rays 
 Of spirit-fire shall thrill the quickened sight, 
 
 And there shall be no Night ; 
 But when the natural sun descends and fades 
 
 From the clear west the ebbing sunset gold, 
 From north to south the auroral light shall play 
 And end the twilight shades, 
 
 And draw around the earth the curtain fold 
 
 Of spiritual light electric day. 
 From north to south the splendor-flame will shine, 
 Making the world a spiritual shrine, 
 Lit by electric lamps, from God's own Spirit kindled; 
 And when the shadowy distances have dwindled 
 Between man's outer and his inner form, 
 And his cold heart with heaven-born love grows warm, 
 
 The earth itself shall bathe its breast in waves 
 Of rich, aromal virtue, far too pure 
 For man's existing frame corporeal to endure. 
 
 Great Truths shall rise from their forgotten graves, 
 And summon Falsehood to God's judgment-bar. 
 No more, from cannon lips, loud-speaking War 
 Shout horrently ; but Peace, with silver wand, 
 Descending from the Infinite, beyond 
 All pictured form of seraph fair and grand, 
 
 Unite the severed nerves of brotherhood, 
 Till earth becomes one free and happy land, 
 
 Which God shall bless and own divinely good.
 
 64 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 More terrible than War is outward Peace, 
 Based upon slavery and nerved by crime, 
 While Virtue perishes, and like dull slime 
 The blood of Nations stagnates in their veins, 
 
 And the crowned Despot reigns 
 In all the pomp and pageantry of guilt. 
 Ere long such arctic Peace from earth shall melt, 
 
 Such mimic order cease. 
 
 And the vast avalanche come thundering down ; 
 Then wo to every head that wears a crown. 
 Freedom shall raise the avenging blade and smite 
 Her foe, as morning smites the hostile night. 
 
 All forms of doctrine shall be tried by fire. 
 
 Each fallen man shall view some angel-sire 
 
 Through rapport with that angel-friend shall see 
 
 In heaven the Great Republic of the Free, 
 
 And learn the truth which God himself makes known, 
 
 That Love, and Light, and Liberty are one ; 
 
 That order blossoms from the tree of love ; 
 
 That man alone can rise to realms above 
 
 Through individual growth and inward grace 
 
 Through love alone behold his Father's face 
 
 Through love alone redeem his brother lost. 
 
 The Earth that now is wrecked and tempest tost, 
 And drifts like some red fire-ship through the glooms,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 65 
 
 Rocking upon the sea of its own tombs, 
 
 Shall float upon a sea of golden azure, 
 
 With white sails filled with airs of sweetest measure, 
 
 When Christ, again, His promise to fulfill, 
 
 Speaks to the sea of time and says, " Be still." 
 
 Thus Inspiration, kindling in my soul, 
 
 Bids me declare. I can no more control 
 
 The mighty Thoughts which visit me, than can 
 
 The dust rebel against the kingly man. 
 
 My nature like a harp is overswept 
 
 By Angel-fingers. 
 
 Oh, I oft have wept 
 O'er the consuming agony that burns 
 Man's heart to ashes, and fills up the urns 
 Of the sky's ether with the smoke of grief. 
 I've seen great Nations wither as the leaf, 
 And poor men perish, pale and stark, before 
 The feasting spendthrift's menial-guarded door ; 
 The weakling, beaten, trampled to the ground, 
 Lashed into madness, scourged like any hound ; 
 The pale young orphan frozen into stone 
 In wintry streets unheeded and alone ; 
 And the sweet daughter of some mother dead, 
 Forced into infamy for lack of bread, 
 Like a fresh flower, plucked, prized, then trodden down, 
 Knelled to destruction by the Bigot's frown.
 
 66 A N K P I C O F T H E 
 
 But these shall be no more. 
 
 Oh, Lord, thou art 
 
 Drawing from Earth's dear breast the poisoned dart. 
 Thy Earth like Thee hath worn its crown of thorns, 
 
 And staggered on its dark and mournful way, 
 And bared its flesh to feel the lash of scorns, 
 
 With none the impious hand of Wrath to stay 
 Thy Earth hath been upon its cross extended, 
 The midnight darkness o'er it hath descended. 
 
 The wormwood and the gall its lips have drunk. 
 The hands of labor and the weary feet 
 Have been transfixed in agony complete ; 
 
 And its great Martyr-heart hath never shrunk, 
 But taken into itself War's burning spear. 
 Its dying cry hath rent the atmosphere, 
 " My God ! My God ! why hast thou me forsaken ?" 
 Its very garments from it have been taken 
 And gambled for by impious priests and kings. 
 It hath been buried in the sepulcher 
 Fierce warriors placed lest it should quickening stir 
 And rise again and roll away the stone. 
 Angels have watched it through the midnight lone, 
 And starry planets, sleepless, pouring down 
 Their light, as garlands its dead brows to crown. 
 
 The grave could not hold thee, thou Crucified One ! 
 And even so Thy Earth
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 67 
 
 
 
 Shall rise again to an immortal birth ; 
 In all its veins Thy Inspirations run. 
 
 There are twelve great chords in the Solar Harp 
 
 One chord alone unstrung ; 
 That chord is touched with a living spark, 
 
 And again it finds a tongue. 
 
 Joy ! joy ! joy ! 
 
 That chord is touched with a living spark, 
 And the Earth grows fair and young. 
 
 There are twelve great Angels above the stars, 
 And they sit on their thrones of gold. 
 
 But the throne of one by Death's iron bars 
 Was crushed in the ages old. 
 Joy ! joy ! joy ! 
 
 For Earth's throne again is among the stars 
 And she sits in the angel-fold. 
 
 There are twelve great Nations in solar space, 
 
 But one of them sat in the gloom ; 
 The sun of its glory vailed its face, 
 In the darkness of the tomb. 
 
 Joy ! joy ! joy ! 
 
 For the twelfth great Nation lifts its face, 
 And glows with immortal bloom.
 
 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 $rt Si*. 
 
 SCENE. The Electric Ocean of the Solar System between tho 
 Planets Mars and Jupiter. 
 
 HELPLESS as any foam-bell on the rivers, 
 
 I am borne breathlessly out where the white 
 
 Sea of eternity rolls on my sight. 
 What is a world ? 
 
 Tis more and less by far 
 Than men have dreamed. 
 
 Each world's a flame-wheeled car 
 On the grooved railway of the skies. A dome 
 Of sunny crystals flecked with silver foam, 
 
 Spray from the Solar Ocean, 
 Whereon it rocks with vibratory motion . 
 
 A heart that throbs and quivers ; 
 A lily blooming on the crystal sea 
 
 Of God's creative harmony ; 
 
 A drop of dew that shines 
 
 On tree-like Nature's leafy top ;
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 
 
 A chariot 
 
 Wherein the angel-hosts in glory ride ; 
 A rosy bower where wedded hearts abide ; 
 
 A living Temple filled with worshipers ; 
 A nest each atom is an egg that stirs 
 With embryonic life, and longs to soar 
 Through the pure ether to the Spirit-shore ; 
 
 A drop of heavenly rain 
 That crystallizes as it falls into 
 A diamond orb, out-sparkling through the blue ; 
 A procreant cradle, swinging 'mid the skies 
 Waved by the breath of angel-melodies ; 
 A fair young Mother holding in her arms 
 Sweet Infants, twins, hued with immortal charms- 
 An Adam and an Eve that fondling lie 
 In the embrace of one humanity. 
 
 Strangely it looks to me to see from far 
 
 The planet Earth like any other star ! 
 
 Once its round sides seemed limitless ; but now 
 
 Its disc is like an apple on a bough. 
 
 All size is relative, and God alone 
 
 Knoweth the actual value of each one 
 
 Of the bright globes that in the ether swim ; 
 
 And worlds, because of men, are dear to Him. 
 
 I often used to wish at eventide
 
 70 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 I were a spirit freed and glorified, 
 Wandering through trackless ether at my will. 
 And when the planet Mars shone bright and still, 
 I hailed its ruddy flame, and wished I were 
 Midst its unvisioned realms a wanderer. 
 
 Oh, strange transition ! I have left that spark, 
 That Earth where I was born, so dim and dark, 
 And wander free as any viewless wind. 
 
 O God ! thy goodness everywhere I find 
 The space man thinks devoid of life is all 
 
 One high celestial hall, 
 
 Thronged by the deathless spirits of the free, 
 Members of one sublime Humanity. 
 
 This mighty ocean whose white effluence flows 
 Around each star like daylight round a rose 
 In some sweet garden, thrills on every side 
 With Spirits, who, upon its radiant tide, 
 Tread lightly as on pavements clear as amber. 
 Not lonely, not alone, the bright ones wander ; 
 Divine Societies that seem to be 
 Of kindred essence, beautiful and free, 
 Yet varying as the colors in the prism, 
 All holy, from the planet-worlds arisen, 
 With varied motion, everywhere appear.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 71 
 
 Again I see that Maiden Spirit dear, 
 My sister-angel. Hark ! I hear her sing : 
 " Unfold, Immortal Brother, 
 
 Thy spirit as a wing. 
 Go up toward another 
 
 Bright World ! Behold its King !" 
 
 I see a Spirit vaster in his stature, 
 More glorious in form, attire, and feature 
 Than wisest sages of the centuries past 
 In vision saw. Around him there is cast 
 A three-fold robe of silver, gold, and blue ; 
 And these his form imperial glimmers through. 
 
 He calls my sister-guide and speaks to her : 
 His words, unknown, my intellect bestir 
 With sense of vastness. 
 
 Now she comes to me 
 
 And says : " Dear friend, that Spirit great and wise, 
 In whose vast thought the light of ages lies, 
 Is from the mighty planet Jupiter." 
 Toward the Spirit I am led by her. 
 
 " Mortal," he says, " the first one of thy days 
 Is ended ; soon the second dawns with rays 
 Of ruby fire upon thee. Come, for I 
 Wait to transport thee to another sky."
 
 72 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 fart 
 
 SCENE. The Electric Ocean of the Solar System in near prox- 
 imity to the Planet Jupiter. 
 
 " HE who on earth was known as ' Man of sorrows,' 
 Is known in Heaven as the CREATIVE MAN. 
 
 He from the Infinite forever borrows 
 
 A seven-fold form. That form in God began. 
 
 The Spirit of that form is Him who built ; 
 The form itself the agent. Heavens outroll 
 
 Forever from One God through one creative Soul." 
 
 So speaks that Titan Angel. All controlled, 
 Each movement, thought, volition of my own 
 I am inspired by influence unknown, 
 Whose thoughts within my brain take outward mold. 
 Great thoughts descend into my spirit melt, 
 As morning melts into some quiet lake, 
 And outward image take. 
 
 I am possessed 
 As if a sun were germed within my heart and breast.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 
 
 The highest heaven is like a Saint-like Spirit, 
 The daughter of celestial perfectness, 
 Begotten from the Father's boundlessness. 
 
 All Angels call that inmost heaven " Mother ;" 
 
 As one maternal form the Earths all love her. 
 The second heaven within the form appears 
 Of a Man- Angel, whose great thoughts are years. 
 
 God's Love and Wisdom shines in dual form 
 Through these, and they eternity inherit. 
 
 They blend in one embrace. From thence are born 
 A family of vast humanities 
 Each sphered within a separate paradise. 
 
 I lift, inspired, mine everlasting eyes, 
 And the slant thought-beams of Divinity 
 Form a transcendent sphere 
 In which all worlds appear, 
 Each in its own degree. 
 
 From this high stand-point worlds and suns are but 
 As water-drops in the deep ocean's cup. 
 
 I never knew before, 
 But now I know, and, knowing, I adore, 
 The nearness of our God to every heart. 
 No soul from His great love can e'er depart. 
 
 God circles round each grain, each viewless breath 
 4
 
 74 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Of man's corporeal nature, as He sweeps 
 His own pure Infinite round heavenly deeps, 
 Girdling each atom with a burning zone 
 Of spirit-life, and stamping that His own. 
 
 I see the inner being of the world 
 
 From where I have ascended. It is whirled 
 
 So rapidly around the sun it flies 
 
 Like a swift meteor, yet with spirit-eyes 
 
 Unfilmed from darkness now, 
 And lifted o'er all altitudes of death, 
 
 I see that God possesses it and how ? 
 
 He holds it in his hand, as one might hold 
 A dying dove, smoothing its feathered gold, 
 Touching its filmy eyes and giving sight ; 
 Touching its torpid brain and giving light ; 
 Pluming its wings for heaven's immortal flight 
 
 Man knoweth riot how near God is to him. 
 
 God's hand is laid upon him. There is plao 
 On every brow the signet of God's thought, 
 
 Nor can that signet ever be effaced, 
 Though it grow famt and dim. 
 
 "Not thus hath Earth been taught, 
 Oh, Angel," I reply. " Grave prelates say
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 75 
 
 That God is a consuming fire who burns 
 
 Man's very heart away, 
 Till dust unto the primal dust returns, 
 Then makes that dust immortal kindles in 
 Heart, mind, and form the blood-red fires of sin 
 Twists the immortal nerves into a lash 
 Of coiling serpents, and where fire-waves dash 
 
 On Agony's eternal coast, 
 
 Precipitates the Lost, 
 
 Rolls waves of flame from His revengeful face 
 And makes a demon-world the vortex of the race, 
 And gloats upon their madness." 
 
 " Listen, mortal," 
 The Angel answers ; " God himself shall speak." 
 
 I see a Man bowed down and very weak: 
 It is a vision of the Ancient time, 
 That man the very Truth of Love Divine : 
 I hear Him speak. His calm, sweet smile I 
 " All that the Father gives shall come to Me, 
 The Father gives all things into my hand." 
 
 I hear another utterance, loud and grand, 
 Sung from the heavenly portal 
 " To Him shall every spirit bow the knee !" 
 
 " Angel," I cry, " these gracious words are said,
 
 76 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 I'm taught, to living men, not to the dead, 
 And I am told that none but those in time 
 Who find His grace can e'er in glory shine." 
 
 " Crush thou that impious thought beneath thy feet ; 
 
 God's mercy is eternal and complete. 
 
 What ! limit God with fetfers made of dust ! 
 
 Wear out His goodness with the body's rust ! 
 
 I tell thee, No ! Jesus shall reign wherever 
 
 A soul has life, and in that soul forever. 
 
 Sin is the canker of the Universe : 
 
 Shall God eternalize that burning curse ? 
 
 Make it perpetual as Himself? Not so. 
 
 Ere long the golden trump of love shall blow, 
 
 And seven-fold harmony the world inclose, 
 
 And Earth rise triumphing o'er all its woes. 
 
 " Wouldst see a vision of the latter day ?" 
 
 I hear the Angel say, 
 " Give me to see it," quickly I reply. 
 
 I see a lovely Maiden in the sky 
 
 Holding a mirror. Fading like a mist 
 
 Of silver from a sun-like amethyst ; 
 
 The vail that hides it is withdrawn. Revealed 
 
 I see an emerald orb upon a golden field, 
 
 Compassed by spheres, and like that raiubow throne 
 
 I read of in the vision of Saint John.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 77 
 
 Earth is God's throne. The spheres around it turning 
 A seven-fold paradise of spirits burning 
 With love and adoration boundless, pure, 
 Dwelling in God, in His own life secure 
 From Retrogression's dark, disastrous shadow. 
 All the wide world is an enameled meadow 
 Where shepherds tend their flocks and cities rise, 
 Sun-domed and glory-tinted to the skies. 
 The heavens and earth are one. The old domain 
 Of Death outblooms, immortal, once again. 
 All the fraternal Nations dwell together 
 Like flocks of stars shining in summer weather, 
 In their harmonious circles, and agree 
 As loving hearts that thrill with ecstasy 
 From all that gives another joy, and each 
 In thought, in beauty, and melodious speech, 
 Like a transfigured Angel in his sphere, 
 Threads the bright mazes of the atmosphere, 
 As Jesus walked of old upon the sea. 
 
 In the Beautiful Hereafter 
 Once again the Eden trees 
 Life's undying harmonies 
 Shall from mortal dust outbloom, 
 Sunshine triumph over gloom.
 
 78 AM EPIC OF THE 
 
 Man now treads the burning rafter 
 Thrown across the burning sea 
 Hark ! the Angel sings to me : 
 
 " In the Beautiful Hereafter, 
 Once again the Eden trees 
 Out from God's own harmonies 
 Shall upon the Earth unfold, 
 Blooming through the Age of Gold. 
 
 Vain is thy derisive laughter, 
 Critic ; can a single sneer 
 Blot out Summer from the year ? 
 
 In the Beautiful Hereafter, 
 
 Hark ! I hear that Angel-strain, 
 
 God in man's own heart shall reign, 
 
 Man become a spirit pure, 
 
 Earth in heaven's own form endure ; 
 
 Seraph hosts shall reappear, 
 
 Then shall bloom Love's endless year. 
 
 Lift, lift, oh, Mother Earth, thy crownless brow ; 
 Fix on the Throne of Light thy darkened eyes. 
 Ere long, oh, widowed Heart of Earth, shalt thou 
 Sit radiant, throned on new-formed Paradise, 
 With all thy Eden trees 
 Around thee full of flowers,
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 79 
 
 With all thy Eden lovers in their bowers, 
 With all thy stately cities full of men, 
 Each wearing Truth's imperial diadem. 
 
 Forever and forever 
 
 Out from thy heart, oh, Earth, shall flow the river 
 Of joyous life. Oh, Earth, sweet Earth, arise, 
 Sit on thy orb and clothe thyself with joy : 
 Love shall be thy beatified employ. 
 
 The Planets fair, 
 
 As one declare 
 Their Sister Earth shall yet 
 
 In endless pleasure 
 
 Wear robes of azure, 
 And all her woes forget. 
 
 The woes of time, 
 
 By Life Divine, 
 Effaced shall pass away ; 
 
 And the Earth shall stand 
 
 At God's right hand 
 The daughter of endless May. 
 
 Like a flower from a tree by the south wind shaken. 
 
 And into the clouds upborne, 
 My thoughts from the leafy earth are taken 
 
 To lands where men never mourn.
 
 80 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 As clouds that rise, by the south wind lifted, 
 
 My spirit is borne to where 
 Great masses of light like islands are drifted 
 Around a kingly pair 
 Of Planets that swim 
 Through the ether dim 
 And shine like, a vision fair 
 Of Beauty and Youth, 
 Or of Love and Truth 
 I am drawn, I am lifted there.
 
 STARRY HKAVEN. 81 
 
 igtt. 
 
 SCENE. The Planet Jupiter. 
 
 VAST Orb out-rolling, garmented with snow, 
 Nay, snow-white ether-spheres, and known below 
 As Jupiter, I rush to thy embrace ! 
 
 Out from white light shines a majestic face ; 
 
 He draws me to his breast ; 
 His spirit soothes me into dreamless rest. 
 
 Winged Pegasus was not all a fable. 
 
 Here are flame-winged horses who are able 
 
 With rapid feet, traversing upper space, 
 
 To fly through heaven like thoughts. They stretch their 
 
 race 
 
 From level earth to atmospheric belts 
 Of spotless lightning, which the Morning melts 
 Into thin mists of silver, scattered down 
 Like plumes of light from out a feathered crown. 
 4*
 
 82 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 I see a company of angel-men, 
 
 And angel-women 'sociate with them ; 
 
 White sheep in fields of ether star the meads 
 
 Of chrysolite. Each flock a woman feeds 
 
 With silver lilies, which all radiant grow 
 
 In spiral pathways, where her bright feet glow. 
 
 Pale moon-flowers, azure veined, ope crimson lips. 
 Birds drink their nectar. Each one, as it sips, 
 Draws rapture from sweet fragrance, and upsoars 
 Buoyant and warbling to celestial shores. 
 
 There are trees of life on the earth below, 
 And each blossom opes with a thousand eyes, 
 
 And the eyes are blue and the lids like snow, 
 
 And the trees through their flowers look up to the skies. 
 
 There's a tree I behold which in Earth begins ; 
 
 It has pulses of crimson in ivory limbs, 
 
 And its lance-like leaves are transformed, and bear 
 
 Flowers that are lights, and that shine through the air 
 
 Like faces of angels through clouds of fragrance ; 
 
 And the leaves are tongues, and with musical cadence 
 
 They utter the secrets of life, and tell 
 
 Of inner virtues in flowers that dwell. 
 
 And birds that are thoughts that have taken wings 
 
 Dive down into snow-while water springs,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 83. 
 
 And gather electric shapes, and glide 
 Sparkling and singing upon the tide. 
 
 Upon this Planet Man is King of Nature ; 
 And every shining creature 
 Of air and earth and flood obeys his call. 
 A visible spirit-light incloses all. 
 The very birds electric mantles wear. 
 Like winged souls they float amid the air, 
 Warbling their love-songs in harmonious tune. 
 The very air with floral wealth is strewn. 
 
 There are electric flowers 
 That ope their golden cups for heavenly showers ; 
 
 That fill with spirit-rain, 
 Incline their chalices, and pour again 
 The living sweetness to the lower plain. 
 
 There are flowers like urns in the ether clear ; 
 The birds in their hearts as in light disappear, 
 And the white, continuous stalks of these 
 Are spirals of light that arise from the trees 
 Of the lower space. They are rooted there, 
 But their life is drawn from the upper air ; 
 And all the rich sky is a garden of bloom. 
 
 I sink as I gaze in a death-like swoon, 
 And my thoughts all sleep, and the sense of sight 
 Grows dark, overcome by excess of light.
 
 84 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 I wake from my sleep in a tapestried room, 
 And the living hues of the upper sky 
 Flash out and each light is a melody ; 
 
 And the music and the burning 
 
 In my heart creates a yearning 
 
 To grow beautiful and wise 
 
 Like a spirit of the skies. 
 My brain to a globe of light seems turning ; 
 The blood in my veins 
 Thrills with music-strains : 
 The harmonic sensations of eye and ear, 
 
 From my former frame forth come, 
 And 1 drink in sound through a golden sphere, 
 
 And I see through a silver dome. 
 And the dome of silver wherethrough I see 
 
 Is the eyes' interior lense ; , 
 
 And the sphere that brings all sweet sound to me 
 
 Is the ears' more inward sense. 
 
 And I have not changed, 
 
 For my heart remains, 
 And my mind is still the same ; 
 
 But my heart beats on 
 
 With music-strains, 
 And my mind is a harp of flame. 
 
 And my hands look strange, 
 For the nerves are fire,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 85 
 
 And the surface shines like the sun, 
 And the pulse vibrates 
 Like a spirit-lyre, 
 
 And the fingers every one 
 Are each with a separate sense of feeling 
 Endued ; and through each to my heart is stealing 
 A separate touch of Divine sensation. 
 This change is not death, but a new creation. 
 My feet are like rubies commingled with pearls ; 
 My head is all covered with flower-like curls, 
 Whose threads are all spirals of golden light. 
 In a crystal glass I beheld the sight 
 I am in this form, but it is not me. 
 " Thus thou shalt yet both seem and be," 
 A Spirit unseen through the silence speaks. 
 My heart the charmed quiet within me breaks, 
 And I hear my heart with an audible voice 
 Speak in my bosom and say, " Rejoice." 
 
 Man on the planet Earth as yet has never 
 His own great nature felt or understood. 
 
 Joy, joy to thee, oh, Man ! the Father Giver 
 Shall yet again pronounce thee " very good." 
 
 And the Harmonic Man shall walk the earth 
 As angels walk the pavement of the sky,
 
 AN EPIC OF TUB 
 
 Revealing, human, through immortal birth, 
 The Great Creator's seven-fold harmony. 
 
 Then the ear shall drink in pleasure 
 
 From the everlasting hymn ; 
 And the voice repeat the measure 
 
 Of the Song of Seraphim ; 
 
 And the lips shall feast on gladness, 
 And the heart shall drink of love, 
 
 And the mind shall rise from sadness 
 Like a white immortal dove. 
 
 Man shall float on seraph pinions 
 
 To the Paradise above 
 Through the far on high dominions 
 
 Of the stars in rapture rove ; 
 
 From the sun to where its heaven 
 The wide system circumspheres, 
 
 Growing fair, in form elysian, 
 
 Through the bright, eternal years. 
 
 CHRIST, in externals, was the revelation 
 Of the harmonic man.
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 87 
 
 Ere long on Earth shall rise a Christ-like Nation ; 
 
 Heaven opened then began 
 The glorious morning of the consummation 
 
 Of God's eternal plan. 
 
 The outward with the inward form intwining 
 
 Shall, Christ-like, walk the earth. 
 Great-thoughted wisdoms from that form outshining 
 
 Like stars expanded forth, 
 And with the elements externe combining, 
 
 Shall give them spirit-birth. 
 
 Man, clothed with immortality, revealing 
 
 Divine affections in divinest deeds, 
 Celestial pure in life, in thought and feeling, 
 
 Shall rise at last above all outward needs, 
 And hear the immortal trumpet loudly pealing, 
 
 And rise and dwell amid the elysian meads 
 Of the serene abode of Angels blessed. 
 Then man, star-eyed, sun-featured, golden-tressed, 
 
 From heaven's dear lap outborn, 
 In Immortality's white arms caressed, 
 
 Shall win a glorious form, 
 
 Like that wherein the SAVIOR rose to heaven 
 His sorrows all effaced his sins forgiven. 
 
 In form external he shall glow
 
 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 With love undying ; then shall flow 
 Heaven through his form into the Earth below. 
 
 The dust beneath his feet shall bloom, outwroughl 
 
 In floral pictures of immortal thought ; 
 
 And where the Arctic snows 
 
 Vail the cold North the orange and the row, 
 
 The pomegranate and the vine, 
 
 The oleander and the myrtle, twine. 
 
 From this harmonic stand-point Truth inshines 
 Upon my intellect in its own light. 
 Man's intellect on Earth is vailed in night, 
 
 But when God's mighty Spirit recombines 
 And quickens all the mental faculties, 
 Again man's reason glorious shall arise, 
 In harmony with sun and moon and stars. 
 His thoughts, like engines drawing freighted cars, 
 Shall circle the great railway of the skies, 
 
 And flame-lipped melodies 
 Shall sing their choral strain his breast within. 
 God shall destroy the dissonance of sin, 
 And sin itself the discord of Mankind. 
 
 God's thoughts of love, like steamships filled with food 
 Of life for Earth's despairing brotherhood,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 89 
 
 Already touch the shallows ; and ere long 
 Immortal mariners, with angel-song, 
 Shall land, all visible, in eager haste, 
 Outreaching heavenly fruit for mortal taste. 
 
 Great caravans, that bear all precious things 
 Of Love and Wisdom, every moment brings 
 Nearer to Earth, and in the streets 
 Shall soon appear, laden with living sweets. 
 And through blue heaven the spiritual fleets, 
 With radiant streaming flag and silver sail 
 Shall come to Earth, blown by the morning gale. 
 
 All the old graveyards shall be clothed in light, 
 And spread with silver carpets, and thereon 
 The dearly loved ones, who from sight have gone, 
 
 Shall sit like gods, throned on the dust below. 
 
 Lone travelers, night bound, hurrying to and fro 
 Shall see bright mansions, built of alabaster, 
 
 Standing in vacant lots, 
 
 Each with an angel-master 
 Standing without and mortals beckoning in, 
 Saying, " The marriage-feast will soon begin." 
 
 In lone, deserted spots 
 Where murders "foul have been committed where
 
 90 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 Dark, ghastly terrors haunt the thickened air, 
 And the owl hoots, and the bat wheels around 
 The festering circle of the haunted ground, 
 Voices of angels, singing holy psalms 
 And scattering incense of immortal balms, 
 Shall sanctify to love and peace the spot, 
 And all the dark disaster be forgot. 
 
 In lowly cots where poor men dwell 
 White angel-hands shall spread the generous board 
 
 The maniac, in his cell, 
 
 Shall wake, with heavenly influence gently poured 
 Through the parched sands of his discordant form. 
 The booming peals of the dread thunder-storm 
 Of madness, and the light'ning bolts that strike 
 
 His quivering heart, be ended, like 
 The end of death in life and joy serene 
 And Love and Wisdom sit like king and queen 
 In the fair palace-chamber God hath built. 
 The dungeons, that Mankind hath reared in guilt, 
 Shah 1 open widely, and the angel-train 
 Smite from each fettered limb the iron chain. 
 
 " When the Perfect Man is come 
 Earth and Heaven shall be his home ;
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 91 
 
 In alternate periods he 
 In them both shall seem and be. 
 Heaven by night and earth by day, 
 Shall behold his wonder-way. 
 
 " With material senses fine 
 He shall dwell in space and time, 
 And shall be a separate part 
 Of Great Nature's mother-heart. 
 In his veins the sun shall glow, 
 In his pulse the earth-life flow. 
 Earth itself in contact sweet 
 Thrill with life his rapid feet. 
 
 " Flower, and gem, and bird, and tree, 
 Shall become Society. 
 All that lives and all that feels 
 Utter to his heart appeals, 
 Speaking in a separate tongue, 
 Uttering wisdom ever young. 
 
 " His great sympathy shall flow 
 Through all forms of life below ; 
 Flowers and birds shall talk for him, 
 And the stars that overswim 
 Through their heaven-revealing eyes 
 Utter speech of Paradise.
 
 92 AX EFIC OF THE 
 
 - Largely gifted, largely *, 
 Of the irorid and sky possessed, 
 He shall be great Nature's heir 
 Lord of earth and sea and air. 
 Like a benediction dwell, 
 Doing all thing* wise and welL 
 
 Lore and Wisdom shall impart 
 To hi* speech a natural art; 
 Clothing all his thoughts with grace 
 Shining, radiant, through his face. 
 Like the dew-drop be shall rise 
 To th upper harmonies, 
 
 Fairer he than Adam old. 
 Earth shall be his Eden-fold. 
 Waking life all ecstasy. 
 When he sleeps, his spirit free, 
 RWB* Jh> bboofer form, 
 .Shall anticipate the morn. 
 Rising from the body's bare 
 
 Through the silent gates of sleep, 
 He the night shall oreiieap, 
 Finding daylight in the stars. 
 
 " He haH see that upper fane 
 
 Where the crowned Archangels reign
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 93 
 
 Mingle with transfigured throngs, 
 Sing their high, seraphic songs ; 
 Be himself an angel strong, 
 Form of art and soul of song ; 
 Be himself the king of time, 
 Lord of every spirit-clime. 
 
 " Drink their gladness, eat their truth, 
 Wear a form of endless youth, 
 To celestial Edens led, 
 Find in heaven a marriage-bed. 
 There his inward life renew : 
 Hence descending through the blue, 
 Reappear on earth and shine, 
 Clothed upon with light divine. 
 
 " There shall be no sickness then ; 
 Health shall weave her anadem ; 
 Wisest Wisdom walk the streets, 
 Temperance govern festal sweets, 
 Wit and Mirth the banquet crown, 
 Plenty reign in every town. 
 
 " Sinless Beauty through the dance, 
 Glide with heavenly countenance ; 
 Music fall from heaven like rain, 
 Birth be free from Mother-pain ;
 
 94 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Children with the angels talk, 
 \ngels with the young men walk, 
 Youths grow mild and maidens wise 
 From the Eternal Mysteries. 
 
 " Earth that now in wide extremes 
 Fever flushed or frozen seems, 
 Like the human soul shall be 
 Modulated harmony !" 
 
 Thus I hear an Orphic Sage, 
 Reading from a lettered page. 
 Now he pauses, shuts the book, 
 Rises with benignant look, 
 While I listen with surprise 
 To the wisdom of the skies. 
 
 " In this Planet calm and holy, 
 Wasting care and melancholy 
 Are forgotten things that lie 
 Deeper far than memory, 
 With the unknown forms of thought 
 Never to experience brought. 
 
 
 
 " All men here are inly wise, 
 All our thoughts are harmonies, 
 Breathed from Love's deep, hidden heart.
 
 STARR YHLiiVEN. 05 
 
 Life prevaileth where thou art 
 O'er all forms of death and pain 
 Here immortal spirits reign. 
 
 " Drink the cup I bring to thee ; 
 All unnerved thy soul will be, 
 But thy waking glorious." 
 He extends a luminous 
 Cup of crimson, and I drink. 
 Now my drowsy eyelids wink 
 Sleep overcomes. Existence seems 
 To aspire and ends in dreams. 
 
 No man who sinks to sleep at night 
 Knows what his dreams shall be ; 
 
 No man can know what wonder-sight 
 His inner eye shall see. 
 
 No man who leaves the outward shape 
 Knows what sweet friend his hand shall take : 
 What soft white breast, what radiant arms 
 Shall fold him in celestial charms. 
 
 And even so I sank to sleep, 
 Like a pale diver through the deep ; 
 But wake where all around expand 
 The palaces of Wonder Land.
 
 96 AN EPIC OK THE 
 
 fint. 
 
 SCENE. An Imperial City, north of the Equatorial Line upon the 
 Planet Jupiter. 
 
 TEN thousand radiant streets like rays converge 
 
 In a vast temple like a rising sun. 
 Each street is lined with palaces that merge 
 
 In living groves. Harmonious flows on 
 Through every street a stream of spotless white. 
 Arches, each like a single chrysolite 
 Or a curved ruby, or a sapphire stone, 
 Over the broad and shining stream are thrown. 
 On these clear streams float gondolas, more large 
 And sumptuous than Cleopatra's barge, 
 Or even the grandest steamship on the tides 
 Of the Atlantic Sea, that stately glides, 
 Whose sails are silken, and whose sides are blue. 
 Each seems to glide the silver water through 
 By some interior instrument moved on. 
 Immortal Men, each one the paragon
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 97 
 
 Of all perfection, throng the shining streets. 
 Each human form the rapid traveler meets 
 Moves like the king of some enchanted realm. 
 The forms I see all language overwhelm. 
 Oh, for the gift of Wisdom to reveal 
 The glory-forms I see, the harmonies I feel! 
 
 The streets that I behold 
 Are formed of sculptured, amethystine gold ; 
 The palaces are built of burning gems ; 
 I see great trees that rise from living stems 
 
 Of jasper. Overhead 
 
 A thousand feet their fan-like limbs are spread, 
 Forming an endless shade a shade of light 
 For the green leaves are luminous to my sight. 
 With an alternate motion every tree 
 External and immortal seems to be. 
 They have a double life and dual form ; 
 The limbs all palpitate alive and warm, 
 As if sensation thrilled in all their veins ; 
 
 From every pore exhales 
 
 Immortal music-strains, 
 And dewy fragrance of Arabian gales. 
 
 'Tis twilight where I stand. The glorious -East, 
 Like a fair palace for the wedding feast 
 Of some high Potentate adorned, is bright 
 5
 
 98 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 With crimson banners on each golden height. 
 The Lord of Day o'ersteps the horizon. 
 Hark ! All the city wakes at once : I hear 
 Triumphant melodies. My spirit-ear 
 Drinks in immortal rapture, and I thrill 
 In every pulse. This music nerves my will. 
 
 I wake like young Apollo. I am made 
 A winged form of music, light-arrayed. 
 In this great city, when the morning gates 
 Are opened, millions of Immortal Fates, 
 Destinies, Glories, Kingly Adorations, 
 Ascended Spirits of ancestral Nations 
 Form a great amphitheater above 
 The holy fane The City of God's Love ! 
 
 I see an amphitheater of souls. 
 
 The glory-sphere encircling them outrolls, 
 
 Forming a lesser sky 
 
 A crimson canopy 
 Above the vast, imperial domain. 
 Here the Ancestral Spirits wisely reign 
 Among their sons and daughters yet abiding 
 In outward shape, and on their earth residing 
 
 Matter and spirit here are interwed. 
 Angels the amber fields of ether tread.
 
 STARRY HEATEX. OC 
 
 And men below wear such harmonious shapes, 
 That each at will the lower earth forsakes, 
 And walks amid the atmosphere, and meets 
 Father and mother in the heavenly streets, 
 That have their center in the Spirits' Heaven, 
 And wind to earth through the bright spiral seven 
 
 Solid, electric chariots in the air 
 
 Appear, each bearing an immortal pair 
 
 Father and mother of some happy band 
 
 Dwelling below in that Enchanted Land. 
 
 They come when morning opes her gates, and bring 
 
 Gifts to their children from the Lord, their King. 
 
 Each man below communion holds with those 
 
 Who dwell on high where God's own presence glows ; 
 
 Each man above is the inspiring gnide, 
 
 Of one below, and each is glorified 
 
 Through mutual interchange. 
 
 This doctrine to 
 
 The dark earth seemeth strange, and yet 'tis true. 
 Angels their endless perfectness renew 
 Only in laboring for the world below. 
 Their added labors added loves bestow ; 
 Each impartation of celestial bliss 
 Confers a joy, that, like a lover's kiss, 
 Thrills on the lips and stirs the bosom-angel 
 With new-born joy. Each soul is an Evangel
 
 100 "AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 To kindred spirits of inferior grade. 
 
 Each angel-friend, in blessedness arrayed, 
 
 Is an immortal gospel, ever teaching, 
 
 And wisdom-spheres of blessedness outreaching, 
 
 And lifting up the lowly by degrees 
 
 Till they ascend into the ecstasies 
 
 Of a divine existence. 
 
 I am told 
 
 That could a high archangel's heart grow cold, 
 His wisdom would avail him not, but he 
 Would sink into a dark vacuity 
 A hollow shell of being, and no more 
 Be visible on Love's illustrious shore. 
 
 Heart thrills to heart through all the wide domain 
 
 Of heavenly life. All angels form a chain 
 
 That in God's burning throne begins and winds 
 
 Down to the lowest plane of earthly minds ; 
 
 And only as each lifts the lower friend 
 
 Can each into superior joy ascend : 
 
 Heaven is the Poetry of Love. To bless, 
 
 To act for others in forgetfulness 
 
 Of separate self is every angel's bliss : 
 
 Angelic life, in heaven, consists in this. 
 
 I see it realized in this bright scene. 
 Angels of lofty and benignant mien,
 
 STARRT HEAVEN. 101 
 
 Ten thousand thousand all as one, divine 
 Employment find, in outer space and time. 
 Their lofty inspirations they infuse 
 In man below : outshaping into use 
 Each precious gift of Wisdom they bestow. 
 Immortal germs the angel-sowers sow, 
 Scattering in every mind and heart the seeds 
 Of truth and love, that ripen into deeds. 
 
 Celestial inspirations here prevail. 
 Their pure and grand interiors never fail 
 
 To flow as quickening powers 
 
 Through men below ; all these bright morning hours 
 The angel-watchers visit their sweet charge 
 The mind, the heart, the faculties enlarge, 
 Strengthen the powers, refine the outer form. 
 And all the inner intellect inform. 
 
 There are Sculptors here who fashion 
 
 Gem-like marbles in the shape 
 Of each high and generous passion 
 
 For their Art's ennobling sake : 
 
 And their hands that touch the marble 
 
 Tinge the veins with light divine, 
 Till the lips half seem to warble, 
 
 And the eyes with life to shine.
 
 102 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 There are Painters here who picture 
 Forms of Beauty on the walls, 
 
 Till they trace an angel-scripture 
 Through the glory-tinted halls. 
 
 There are Poets here who whisper, 
 
 And their words are like the stars- 
 Like the silver light of Hesper, 
 Or the ruby flame of Mars 
 
 There are Harmonists whose fingers, 
 
 From the pulses of the air, 
 Call out melody that lingers 
 
 All along the golden stair 
 
 Of the spiral that ascendeth 
 
 To the Paradise on high, 
 And arising there inblendeth 
 
 With the music of the sky. 
 
 Dark Earth shall be like this ; where now expand? 
 The drear Sahara's barren waate of sands, 
 A glorious Nation, called the " Morning Race," 
 Shall build their State. 
 
 I see an Angel's face, 
 
 Rose-veined, sun-tinted, white as any pearl ; 
 I see her form : 'tis a sweet Angel-girl,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 103 
 
 Vailed in a robe that like the golden fleece 
 
 Of sheep that pasture in the sun, folds her 
 
 As in a floating mist of gossamer. 
 
 Fair as the Prophet's vision of sweet Peace, 
 
 From the pure heaven-life, beautiful outshining, 
 
 She stands and now her graceful head inclining, 
 
 And preluding upon an instrument 
 
 Whose chords are silver-fire of light, o'erbent 
 
 By sculptured wreaths of crysopras, she sings, 
 
 And her heart vibrates, chording with the strings 
 
 Of that sweet instrument that seems to be 
 
 Endued itself with immortality. 
 
 " Yes, golden bands, 
 
 Thy desert sands, 
 Oh, Earth, shall interfuse, 
 
 And into thee 
 
 From heaven shall be 
 Inpoured celestial dews 
 
 " Of amber light 
 
 And liquid flame, 
 And these in turn shall be 
 
 Cups lifted for 
 
 The diamond rain 
 Of immortality.
 
 104 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 " The sands shall glow 
 
 All rosy white 
 And streams of silver dew 
 
 From out the land 
 
 Of morning light 
 Shall flow thy heart into. 
 
 " Like a charmed maid 
 
 That sleep o'ercame, 
 Of old thy desert lies ; 
 
 But she shall wake 
 
 To life again, 
 Like Eve in Paradise ; 
 
 " And sit upon 
 
 An ivory throne, 
 While all celestial flowers, 
 
 By angels thrown 
 
 Through heaven's blue dome, 
 Become terrestrial bowers. 
 
 " The brindled lion 
 
 Then shall be 
 Mild as the mourning dove, 
 
 And the coiled serpent 
 
 Splendidly 
 Become a winged love.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 105 
 
 Out from the dust 
 
 The stately palms 
 Shall lift their feathered plumes, 
 
 And angels breathe 
 
 Immortal balm, 
 Through all thy covert glooms. 
 
 " There shall unfold from Afric's breast, 
 In love and wisdom interblest, 
 A youth and maiden who shall be 
 Emblems of Faith and Charity 
 The Eve and Adam of a new $-.^\ < 
 Immortal Race. Thou shalt renew 
 Again, oh, dusky Land, the joy 
 Of thy most ancient ancestry. 
 Thy Golden Age, from heaven outrolled, 
 Shall bless with forms of beauteous mold 
 All the vast continent, transform 
 Thy midnight to perennial morn ; 
 And beauty's blushing rose again 
 Unfold, and thrill with honey dew 
 Love's coral lips, and, splendidly, 
 Haloes thy pure high brow be-gem, 
 Lit by the fire of Deity." 
 
 Each race of men on our dark Earth possesses 
 5*
 
 106 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 A kindred race of Angels who abide 
 
 In realms of Higher Life. The glowing tide 
 
 Of inspiration flows and life-impresses 
 Each National Existence. Every tribe 
 
 Is thereby life-lit through a glorified 
 Race of Angelic Spirits dwelling far 
 From outward vision on some nobler star. 
 
 As sheep from snowy Ararat 
 Borne to the tropics, change their white to black, 
 So the bright spirit-essence, fair and white, 
 Through outward form descending into sight, 
 Seems dark as ebony ; but when once more 
 Perfect exteriors, quickened from the core 
 With love and wisdom, shall be born for them, 
 Where now resounds the slaver's curse, the chain 
 The scourge, the fetters for the feet and hands," 
 Shall pass away. Then shall thy radiant Lands, 
 Dear Africa, all present lands transcend ; 
 
 Through thy dark face the immortal splendor shine, 
 And all thy families be more than friends, 
 
 Bound in the rosy tie of Angel-life divine. 
 
 Angels shall dwell where now the serpent hides
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 1 07 
 
 In the dense marshes where the Niger rolls ; 
 Where now the spotted tiger fierce abides, 
 
 Shall dwell bright families, whose inner souls 
 Are angel-melodies, insphered in form 
 And the exterior shape, in likeness born, 
 Fair as young Mozart, musical like him, 
 Shall, in the cradle, chant with cherubim. 
 
 There is a Higher Law from heaven descending ; 
 
 It hath no stain, no flaw all men befriending 
 
 It lifts the lowly and abases none. 
 
 All families of earth shall yet become, 
 
 Like flowers in one garden, beautified 
 
 From One Pure Source. The vain, the impious prid< 
 
 Of color, caste, and fashion, now adored, 
 
 Then perish, by no angel-heart deplored : 
 
 And North and South like twin-born children rest, 
 
 Drinking sweet life from one pure Mother's breast. 
 
 Then the Caucasian Race 
 The Indian shall embrace, 
 And the old lines of Gentile and of Jew 
 God's father-hand efface :
 
 108 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 His mighty heart in gladness beating through 
 The millioned veins of our humanity, 
 Shall make all nations equal, wise and free. 
 
 Then the dark Battle-ship, that floating devil 
 
 Through whose loud cannon speaks demonic Evil, 
 
 As Angels speak through media but inverse 
 
 Then the fell Slave-ship, like a muffled hearse, 
 
 Bearing the living-dead across the waters, 
 
 Whose foul, black hold is hell, where sons and daughters 
 
 Of God Most High in stifling agony, 
 
 Choked up in living channels, putrefy 
 
 And feel the flesh decaying from the bones, 
 
 While overhead, cold as the church-yard stones, 
 
 The felon-trader sits and calculates 
 
 The price of blood, and coolly speculates 
 
 How much God's Image, clothed in sable skin, 
 
 Will fetch some Cuban sugar-house within, 
 
 Shall sink into Oblivion's unknown wave. 
 
 Oh, Earth, the Lord of Life is strong to save, 
 And the still whispers of the Eternal Power, 
 Shall fall on thee, as falls a southern shower, 
 When May comes o'er the mountains with bright feet 
 
 Then Heaven and Earth shall meet, 
 As a sweet Mother o'er her infant bends, 
 While the child's anguish on her bosom ends
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 
 
 109 
 
 Dart 
 
 SCENE. An Electro-spiritual Region above the Planet Jupiter, 
 and intermediate between the Surface of the Planet and the 
 Spiritual Orb in which it is inclosed. 
 
 " RISE, Brother, rise !" 
 
 That Angel-voice calls from the crimson skies. 
 " There are twelve great nations of Angel Men, 
 Each crowned with a separate diadem, 
 Each garmented with different hues, each wrought 
 After a separate archetypal thought 
 
 Of the Creative Mind, 
 
 And they have their homes in the planet vast. 
 The Future is theirs, and the mighty Past 
 No less than the present time, for they 
 Have minds that are filled with immortal day. 
 
 " Rise, Brother, rise !" 
 I am borne through a spiral 
 That upward winds with an inward gyral ;
 
 110 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 I am borne, as an angel lifts a prayer 
 
 From a worshiping saint through the shining air. 
 
 I am made like a spirit in brain and heart ; 
 
 Like a fiery arrow through space I dart ; 
 
 And I see the glorious world below, 
 
 In the rich, red sunrise brighten and glow. 
 
 My thoughts are all vastness, my pulses thrill, 
 
 And I rise on the wings of the inner will. 
 
 Through the will and its power I rise and soar 
 
 And alight at last on a Middle Shore, 
 
 A sphere of aromas, gold, crimson, and green, 
 
 A. world of Electrical Forms between 
 
 A world like heaven below, and on high 
 
 A heaven like a world, outrolled in the sky. 
 
 I stand on this intermediate sphere, 
 
 And with mediate senses feel, see, and hear, 
 
 There is an intermediate degree, 
 Dividing time from its eternity ; 
 A middle world that, like a silver urn, 
 Is filled with living essences that burn 
 With spirit-fire assume electric shape, 
 And an electric life and glory take, 
 And rest awhile, in life unfolding o'er 
 A music ocean, and a music shore 
 Of atoms, each a music-note in-set
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. Ill 
 
 In living thought, forming a coronet 
 Of beauty on the Planet's forehead fair. 
 
 Thin, moonlit forms appear 
 
 With robes of gossamer, 
 Tinted with all the harmonies of light, 
 So lovely that they shrink from their own sight, 
 Like some pure beauty who the first time sees 
 Her glowing face mirrored in crystal seas. 
 
 The souls of all the flowers, 
 Hereafter to adorn material bowers, 
 Here sparkle, burn like lamps, outbreathing on 
 The air sweet fragrance ; and a golden zone, 
 A vesture of electric light, clothes each 
 
 Like a pure vail of silver lace 
 
 That hides a young bride's rosy face 
 
 Upon her marriage night. 
 
 And the spirits of the flowers 
 
 Are like fairies, and they preach 
 Many parables of wisdom 
 
 In a half-embodied speech, 
 From the bosom-life outbreathing, 
 
 Like the faint, half-uttered " Yes" 
 Of a maiden fair, outvvreathing 
 
 Her deep being's tenderness, 
 When the bashful lover kneeling, 
 
 Looking up in her dear eyes,
 
 112 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Heaxs the murmured accent stealing, 
 Like a voice from Paradise. 
 
 This mystic truth but few will comprehend ; 
 Yet flowers, as well as we, have souls, dear friend. 
 They are unconscious Loves, whose breath so sweet, 
 Whose fragrant life, that crushed beneath the feet, 
 
 Ascending in rich balms, 
 
 Like pure, melodious psalms, 
 Blesses the injurer, in their rich excess 
 Picture some element of loveliness 
 Within the human bosom. Yet all flowers 
 Outpoured through this pure world of middle sky, 
 
 Which the angelic Sowers 
 Outscatter from their heavenly harmony, 
 Are but far-distant emblems, 
 Are but the shadow semblance, 
 Of that great world of living ecstasy, 
 That garden of pure, innermost affection, 
 That sacred orb of limitless perfection, 
 That spiritual sphere of melody, 
 That starry heaven of pure, impassioned feeling, 
 That light-dome of God's infinite revealing, 
 In one pure Spirit, in yon realm on high. 
 
 All things in heavens and planets pure are symbols 
 Of forms of love and truth within the breast ;
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 113 
 
 And though tne type its antetype resembles, 
 Yet still the form within the soul is best. 
 
 All things that God hath made are grand and glorious 
 According to the meanings they suggest. 
 
 White-thoughted Spirits, o'er decay victorious, 
 Risen through perfect love into their rest 
 
 Of weariless existence, in the golden 
 
 Spheres of eternity thou seest afar, 
 By thy interior sense of sight beholden, 
 
 Teach the great truth all living things that are 
 
 Form outward shadows of a pure ideal 
 
 Fashioned from heaven within man's inner thought. 
 Man is himself the actual and real, 
 
 And Nature but a picture-world, outwrought 
 
 To image forth in space the tones and numbers 
 Of loves and wisdoms that within him lie. 
 
 The worlds and spheres are but the ante-chambers. 
 But Man the temple of Divinity. 
 
 For ends of use to man were ail created ; 
 
 All heavens and earths are chords in one bright lyre, 
 Which Man himself, the highly, nobly fated, 
 
 Shall sweep with fingers of harmonic fire.
 
 114 AX EPIC OF THE 
 
 Earth, air, and ocean, planets high in ether, 
 Suns and sun-heavens are but the mighty keys 
 
 In one great organ. Man himself forever 
 Controls with spirit-will their harmonies. 
 
 Sayest thou, oh, mortal Man, these are but fancies ? 
 
 Sayest thou the greater subjugates the less ? 
 Call'st thou our angel-teachings bright romances, 
 
 The musings of a spirit's idleness ? 
 
 Sayest thou that man we cheat, deride, and flatter, 
 Thus guileful, seeking to enslave his mind ? 
 
 Say on ! but answer first, " What end hath matter ? 
 Is it a substance that doth spirit bind ? 
 
 Was matter before all ? Did matter make 
 God, men, and angels ? Is it a great snake 
 Crushing all souls within its iron span ? 
 Did it the worlds, the skies, creation, plan ? 
 Tossing out spheres like foam-bells on the sea, 
 Throwing up water-spouts of Deity, 
 Speaking in language, weaving periods, times, 
 Angels, angelic heavens, and Poet-rhymes, 
 Creating man, then making him a Lover ? 
 Is matter an iron wrench to screw the cover 
 Of death upon a coffined universe ? 
 In one word, positive or negative ?
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 115 
 
 Doth matter motion take or motion give ? 
 Make matter positive to spirit, then 
 God, heaven, love, wisdom, souls of living men 
 Are the blind vassals of its blind caprice ; 
 Its iron hand contracts, and all things cease. 
 
 Carry thy faith to its deductions, thou 
 
 Who payest at Matter's shrine thy fearful vow, 
 
 Blind Worshiper, adoring blackest night. 
 
 Not so yon star-eyed children of the Light 
 
 Teach on their lofty thrones. 
 
 They say that heavens are domes 
 Outrolling from the vastness of the Mind. 
 Spirit is limitless and unconfined. 
 It speaks and all things are, and from above 
 Impermeates its own great thoughts with love. 
 Outbreathing waves of life in endless motion, 
 The spiral waves of one expanding ocean, 
 Whose every drop contains more solar schemes 
 Than Earth's astronomers entranced in dreams 
 Of heaven's immensity e'er thought or saw, 
 And all controlled by order, love, and law 
 
 Hast thou ever thought, oh, mortal Man, 
 That the Sun itself in a thought began ? 
 And that Thoughts are the inner Suns that dwell 
 Insphered as minds in each burning shell ?
 
 116 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Hast thou ever thought how the Light forth-came ? 
 I'll tell thee 
 
 God breathed, and a sphere of flame 
 Outrolled and enwrapt the Universe. 
 Each ray of light was a thought in verse 
 From the Poet Heart of our God outsung. 
 
 Didst thou ever think of the human tongue, 
 
 How still in itself, yet speaking the air 
 
 Into music of wisdom melodious and rare ? 
 
 Look at it ; think of it. Thy tongue can tell 
 
 Great truths, yet itself like the tongue of a bell ; 
 
 It thinketh not, and it hath no voice, 
 
 Yet its golden tones bid the world rejoice. 
 
 All matter is God's tongue ! 
 Out from its motion God's thoughts are sung, - 
 And the realms of space are the octave bars, 
 And the music-notes are the suns and stars. 
 
 There is not a Poet in all creation 
 
 But chants from an inward inspiration ; 
 
 Whether his thoughts be in octaves and rhymes, 
 
 Or outroll into eras or seasons or times ; 
 
 Or climb through the air with their marble spires, 
 
 Or leap into space from a thousand choirs. 
 
 God is the Poet of poets, and He
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 117 
 
 Out-sings through their verses the harmony 
 
 Of the one great epic of Truth sublime 
 
 He formed, ere space was, in his heart divine. 
 
 God shines, and He moves, and He speaks, and He sings, 
 
 Through all harmonious winged things. 
 
 They are all the outbirths of living thought ; 
 
 Each frailest flower is an essence brought 
 
 Down from the dome of the highest sky, 
 
 Outshining a living entity, 
 
 Whose pulses thrill from God's living Will ; 
 
 It is quickened and moved from the Deity. 
 
 God is in all things, yet over all, 
 Else were creation a corpse and a pall. 
 God is o'er all, or there is no God. 
 God is in all, else is all a clod. 
 
 There's an Infinite Mind that all mind inspires ; 
 There's an Infinite Heart that man's bosom fires ; 
 There's an Infinite Breath from the Infinite Soul 
 Inflowing through all and beyond control. 
 There's an infinite sphere in which all things lie ; 
 It encircles all skies 'tis the parent sky. 
 There's an Infinite Presence everywhere, 
 And it beats like a pulse in each globe of air. 
 There's an Infinite Will of an Infinite Cause, 
 And it twines throughout Nature harmonic laws.
 
 118 ANEPICOFTHK 
 
 SCENES. The Middle Air above the Planet Jupiter, and the Im- 
 perial City, called " The City of God's Love." 
 
 UPON this orb are streams of quicksilver. 
 Innoxious, the white waves in music stir. 
 These are the pulses of the orb, and flow 
 In parallels through the vast plain below. 
 
 Beneath my feet expands a broad lagoon. 
 Six hundred islands in its bosom lie. 
 
 Fair as the crescent moon 
 Whose silver bark, outsailing silently 
 From sunset heavens shines from the level west, 
 I see a silver bark glide o'er the breast 
 Of the rich waves of ether, where the lines 
 Of distant crimson mark the Spirit Climes. 
 
 It is an air-drawn chariot, lightning built, 
 Its burnished sides are stars of crimson gilt, 
 Inlaid in sapphire splendors. In its keel,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 119 
 
 Shafted with light, appears a spiral wheel, 
 
 Which turning rapidly outrolls a stream 
 
 Of golden fire tinged with the lunar beam. 
 
 'Tis an aerial ship that sails the sea 
 
 Of the still ether, moved by melody. 
 
 In it a thousand mariners appear. 
 
 One at the prow stands like a gondolier, 
 
 Or like Columbus, when, with kindling glance, 
 
 And all the Future in his countenance, 
 
 He stood erect, leaning from out the bow 
 
 Of his frail pinnace, and the flag unfurled 
 
 Of the Great Future o'er a new-found World. 
 
 From what sphered continent, oh, Spirit wise, 
 Com'st thou ? The heaven-light in thy deathless eyes, 
 Where was it kindled, in what vast domain ? 
 
 I see above me a great lightning tram 
 
 Of rapid-moving cars. 
 
 O'er the electric bars 
 Of an aerial flame-way they rush on 
 Through the vast regions of the atmosphere. 
 
 I see a white-winged eagle drawingnear. 
 Upon it stands a radiant Amazon. 
 Around her flows a mantle gold and blue. 
 Her form sublime outshines the mantle through,
 
 120 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 As if all heaven were interfused a shape 
 
 Of stars and suns and azure skies to make. 
 
 Each atom of her form is like a zone 
 
 Of living, luminous, glowing sapphire stone 
 
 Holding within itself a seven-fold sun. 
 
 The stars and sapphires, interfused in one, 
 
 Garment that radiant Spirit with a form, 
 
 Like a blue sky, encompassed, filled with morn. 
 
 Yet 'tis no Spirit fierce, no type of War ; 
 The soul of goodness shines from out her breast. 
 She pauses. From her bosom, their pure nest, 
 A thousand doves come flying toward me. 
 Those doves, outborn from her heart's ecstasy, 
 Are thoughts, for here all thoughts appear as things. 
 They cluster round me with their snow-white wings, 
 Fix on my heart twin thousand loving eyes, 
 And lift me upward till I touch the hand 
 Of the bright Angel Woman, who appears 
 Empress or Queen of some vast Realm of Spheres. 
 
 Her eagle, like a spiritual throne, 
 
 Moves at the viewless mandate of her will, 
 Rapid as light, and as its dawning still, 
 
 And I move with her through the ether. 
 Now 
 
 Toward the planet's breast our flight we bow
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 121 
 
 A thousand miles below, 
 Toward that islanded lagoon we go 
 
 Eastward I see a million terraces, 
 
 Rising in gradual slopes, and centering whore 
 
 A sun-like temple on the blazoned air 
 Shines, mountain-high, through the transparent seas 
 
 Of the self-luminous ether, and illumes 
 An undulated city which extends 
 
 A thousand miles of light on every side. 
 
 Ten thousand streets, like rays, 
 Outglow from that bright center ; through each one 
 Rivers of quicksilver appear to run, 
 And all the streets are lined with palaces 
 In vast, continuous lines extending on. 
 That central temple, like a Pantheon, 
 All blended glories overwreath. 
 
 Bright spires, 
 
 Which typify the soul's divine desires 
 And wind in spirals, lessening till they end 
 In golden flames that into ether blend, 
 Are pinnacles around the mightier vault. 
 
 Ten million statues, ranged in seven-fold rows, 
 Each one of whom a golden trumpet bknvs, 
 
 Seated on sun-like thrones, 
 
 And two and two, like bridegroom and like bride, 
 Each serves the use of a Caryatide. 
 G
 
 122 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 A vast sun-circle floats above their heads, 
 Lifting that vaulted spherej whose glory sheds 
 Divine effulgence on each statued face. 
 Ten thousand thousand splendor-forms of grace 
 Are imaged in the sun-sphere of the dome. 
 
 Above it, seated on a diamond throne, 
 
 Is one Transcendent Image. There is cast 
 
 A blaze of splendor from that Presence vast, 
 
 Whose burning light-beams play 
 O'er the great Pantheon, like day on day. 
 
 The throne He sits on, like the morning star, 
 Is borne by sculptured seraphim. They are 
 Flame-winged and burn, like rubies, with a red 
 Arterial splendor. And their wings, outspread, 
 
 Upbear a golden pediment 
 With silver and with sapphire flames inblent. 
 The statue form of WISDOM, God's great Spirit, 
 The Word, who doth the Universe inherit, 
 Pervading all things and inspiring all, 
 Is throned sublime upon that sun-like ball. 
 
 The dome itself is like the starry heaven. 
 Prismatic lusters, gold and white and green, 
 And crimson-tinted like the morning beam, 
 And amethyst and purple and pale amber,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 123 
 
 Inveined with silver streams of light, meander, 
 
 Like streams of seven-fold spheres through ether driven, 
 
 Through the clear vault, which like an orrery, 
 
 Filled with star-systems of immensity, 
 
 Crowned with the image-form of Truth, shines down, 
 
 Lighting ten thousand streets of that great town 
 
 As the sun lights the universe. 
 
 All time, 
 
 All sense of earth, and of its shades of crime, 
 Like night-clouds vanish from my memory. 
 Gazing in awe and wonder, silently, 
 Beholding from afar that temple vast, 
 The vail of sleep is o'er my spirit cast.
 
 124 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Jari 
 
 SCENE. An Inner Sanctuary within the Imperial Temple pre- 
 viously described. During this Scene the Spirit is uplifted suc- 
 cessively into clairvoyance of the Spiritual and Celestial Heavens. 
 
 I AM transported breathlessly into 
 
 A purple chamber, fashioned like the heart, 
 And overhead a dome of starry blue, 
 
 Out-imaging Creative Life and Art, 
 Shines down like some vast Mind. A golden shell 
 Surrounds this heart-like Temple. Tis a globe 
 Of gold and crimson, and its lower lobe 
 Filled with red waves which beat with living motion 
 On the heart-shrine, and thrill it with emotion. 
 The upper lobe is a bright canopy. 
 
 All things in heaven and earth grow visible. 
 I am the subject of a master spell, 
 And, dwelling in this Temple of the Heart, 
 My lips are opened with a natural art.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 125 
 
 Groat thoughts, like silver-footed Helohim, 
 Souls of the Second Heaven, around me hymn 
 Together, and my spirit inly burns 
 For God, and to His wisdom inly turns, 
 Drawn by the magnet-power of Deity. 
 
 A white-robed Spirit, holding in one hand 
 
 A crimson-blossomed rod, 
 And in the other a pure silver key, 
 
 Shines through a silver vail. 
 
 Her face is very pale. 
 
 Such perfect whiteness man has never seen 
 Nor Saint beheld it. This is no pale dream, 
 No bodiless enchantment of the night. 
 Her breath inspires me with interior might ; 
 I feel as if the world were all a breath, 
 And matter but a, form of painted death. 
 The suns appear like butterflies or leaves, 
 And constellations like ephemeral wreaths 
 Of golden daisies, in the meadows low ; 
 And great Sun-Heavens, each one a silver ball 
 Around a universe, seem, one and all, 
 Like lily-buds whose golden anthers are 
 Suns, and each petal a life-blooming star. 
 
 'Tis Mind alone that hath reality : 
 
 All forms of space are seemings that depart
 
 126 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Like evening vapors. 
 
 Oh, Eternity ! 
 
 Like a white Woman Archimage thou art. 
 Peerless in beauty thou dost sit above 
 The rolling sun-spheres of the universe, 
 Chanting forever thine harmonic verse. 
 
 Suns, systems, galaxies, great spheres with wings 
 That mortal thought ne'er emblemed, orbs like snow, 
 Terrestrial heavens, from out thy essence go, 
 Like thoughts unfolding from the human brain ; 
 For thou art Wisdom, and thy thoughts are things 
 
 Outfashioned from thy love, 
 Which go from thee and come to thee again. 
 
 Spirit of Light ! I pray thee let me go. 
 Uttering thy truth in words to men below, 
 They will declare me mad, and I shall be 
 Crushed like a worm beneath man's heel that dies. 
 
 " Nay, brother, nay.! for thou art here to see 
 
 Truth that shall make uncounted myriads wise. 
 
 If thou art faithful to thy noble trust. 
 
 Like a white lily blossoming from dust, 
 
 Thy memory shall bloom 
 
 When kings and hierarchs are lost in gloom." 
 
 Flatter me not, oh, Angel ; Earth is strong,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 127 
 
 Sin-bound and iron-hampered with the Wrong. 
 Wert thou on Earth, did'st thou thy Wisdom tell 
 To mortals, they would call thee " fiend from hell," 
 And quote from sacred books to prove thou wert. 
 And were thy body capable of hurt, 
 The axe, the rifle, the assassin's steel, 
 The fire, the gallows, or the torturing wheel 
 Would be thy doom, or, thy pure lips unfed, 
 Thou would'st grow famished for a crust of bread. 
 Such is the orb where my external lives : 
 He who celestial truth to myriads gives 
 Bears on his pallid brow the mark of shame. 
 Scorn clothes him like a shirt of woven flame. 
 Angel, 'tis so ; when I to earth return, 
 
 Thousands of miles my weary feet must go. 
 I have no home, no place to lay my head, 
 
 And drink the cup of wo. 
 
 I with the Angel rise, with her I stand 
 Upon the margin of a snow-white Land 
 Where Truth, in its own light, is seen and known. 
 Here thoughts, like seeds, in the white substance sown, 
 Rise with great shafts, expand their branches far, 
 Bearing vast fruits and flowers like sun and star. 
 These are the souls of worlds ; within them lies 
 The germinal essence of all properties 
 Hereafter to assume electric forms
 
 128 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 In intermediate spheres. Here nights and morns, 
 And noons and seasons shine. 
 
 Beneath appears 
 A mighty splendor-mine 
 Filled with the essence of all crystalline, 
 All chemic elements, all precious ores. 
 An ocean of white mind-fluid laves the shores, 
 And essences that shall hereafter be 
 The radiant, sparkling shrines of Deity, 
 In milk-white clouds meander as if they 
 Were snowy mists in one blest heaven of day. 
 In this high Sphere all things originate ; 
 It is a realm whose vast and solemn state 
 In sovereign splendor dazzles, with intense, 
 Reflected thought-beams of Omniscience, 
 All finite faculties of mind and will. 
 Seven separate Thoughts through all my nature thrill 
 These thoughts Superior Wisdom maketh known. 
 
 The first great Thought 
 Within me wrought, 
 
 I utter though I die 
 
 Tis this: before God made an earth or sky; 
 Before a single human form had birth, 
 
 He built a heaven and earth 
 
 Of thought-forms, and He said, O, Time and Space 
 I will you into being. From His face
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 129 
 
 A glory-sphere outshone, and 'twas a sun. 
 Love, Wisdom, Use, rolled from the Eternal One. 
 And, interfused, their ultimates became 
 A vortex of heat, light, and blended flame, 
 Which was the source of Nature, for all these 
 
 In three discrete degrees 
 
 Became less animate, less fine, 
 
 Below their Cause Divine ; 
 Each of these three divided into seven 
 Great circles, Highest the Celestial Heaven, 
 Which God's pure Love-Sphere dwells in ; this below 
 The Spiritual Heaven, with silver glow, 
 Quickened, sustained, pervaded from above 
 By the great Sphere Divine of Truth in Love , 
 And below these, outrolled in space and time, 
 A realm of ether, waveless, crystalline, 
 Swimming with suns and vortices and realms 
 Of natural lire 
 
 The subject overwhelms 
 
 My laboring Reason. All things that appear 
 All laws, all principles, out-imaged here 
 In the vast realm of causes, where Causation 
 Itself God worketh out creation 
 Appear so manifest, that Wisdom finds 
 All secrets here : the origin of minds, 
 The government, the order, and the end 
 Whereto all issues in their movement tend.
 
 130 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 Here, visible, the Future and the Past 
 I calmly see, with insight pure and vast. 
 Thus on the lower earth, terrestrial men 
 Upon the topmost peak of Darien 
 Behold the Atlantic and Pacific seas, 
 The ocean of the old world and the new 
 Swept by the morning breeze, 
 And blended in one grand consummate view. 
 
 The second Truth I must perforce declare 
 
 Is this : God ever worketh, everywhere, 
 
 And everywhere from one Divine decree, 
 
 Urging all forms to one high destiny, 
 
 Shaping all things in wisdom from His will, 
 
 And oh, how calm He works ! and oh, how still ! 
 
 And works from centers outward to extremes, 
 
 Diffusing through all forms the tempered beams 
 
 Of love and wisdom perfect and divine, 
 
 Through them outworking through all space and time. 
 
 And everywhere outfashioning the same 
 
 Great purpose into being. His true name 
 
 Is Maker, for He works with master hand 
 
 In every sun and every grain of sand, 
 
 With perfect skill. His work is never done, 
 
 Or, being ended, is anew begun.
 
 3 TARRY HEAVEN. 131 
 
 The Third great Truth I utter yet shall be 
 The theme of poet eloquence, and sung 
 With harp, and organ, and the human tongue, 
 
 And melted in the universal sea 
 
 Of human nature, as a pearl in wine. 
 
 There is in every soul an inner shrine 
 
 Of love and wisdom, holier than ark, 
 
 Parchment, or.written stone, or leafy bark 
 
 Inscribed with wisdom from the golden age 
 
 A sunlike altar, an immortal page 
 
 Which God hath made to be type, record, shrine, 
 
 And angel-peopled home 
 And paradise and sky and spirit-dome 
 Of his essential Godhood. 
 
 Evermore 
 
 The God whom all celestial hosts adore 
 Is working there. 
 
 Were man the burning pit, 
 And his interiors hell, the Infinite 
 Creator not the less would stand therein, 
 With still, sweet music speaking through the din 
 Of all tumultuous passions, till the sea 
 Of the heart's madness and its agony, 
 Brightened beneath the footprints of His love, 
 Grew calm, reflecting heavens of bliss above.
 
 132 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 In plainer language, doing all tilings well, 
 God's effluence doth in darkest natures dwell, 
 Speaking, imploring, blessing them by turns, 
 Seeking to cleanse the desecrated urns 
 Of thought and feeling, scattering fragrant dews 
 Of blessing, choice and frequent and profuse, 
 On the parched desert of the worldling's heart ; 
 Driving the money-changers from the mart 
 Of the interior temple, making whole 
 The sick, despairing inmates of the soul, 
 Cleansing the tainted appetites, revealing 
 A heaven of love for every inmost feeling 
 Outflowing even to the far extremes 
 Of outer sense, outrolling glory -beams 
 From the sweet love-sphere of His own pure nature 
 Clothing each wasted breast and mind and feature. 
 With heavens of love and light and innocence, 
 Quickening the very nerves of outer sense 
 For melody and sight and living joy 
 This work is God's employ. 
 
 There's not a pirate in the Indian Ocean 
 God dwells not in, with tides of pure emotion 
 Seeking to hallow, sanctify, inspire, 
 And lift him from that hell of inward fire, 
 Whose scorching madness desolates, defiles, 
 Degrades his spirit.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 133 
 
 In those barbarous Isles, 
 Where gory cannibals lap human blood, 
 And gnash their teeth upon half-living food 
 Of men and brothers, God is not afar. 
 He worketh there, as where the angels are, 
 Seeking to call from out these caverns drear 
 Bright Spirits, fitted for the Seventh Sphere 
 Seeking to change the human wolves to men, 
 While angels breathe from heaven, " Amen, Amen." 
 
 God is no iron bigot who beside 
 Some learned divine reposes sleepy-eyed, 
 While the grave prelate misapplies the law 
 And testimony. No man ever saw 
 God in such pulpit or such papal robe. 
 He holds creation as a hollow globe 
 In his right hand, or like a lily bloom 
 Bathing it from the splendor of His eyes. 
 
 Creation, like a new-born infant, lies 
 
 Near to His heart. Sight, sense, the inward eyes, 
 
 The Moral Reason all declare how dear 
 
 Creation is to the great Father Soul. 
 
 Its little pulses from His bosom roll, 
 
 O'erflowed and harmonized. Its lips are fed 
 
 From God, and on His breast it pillows its young head.
 
 134 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 The fourth great Truth sphered continents ere long 
 
 Shall witness in their jubilee, 
 While Wrong shall vanish utterly, 
 
 From every land and sea. 
 
 'Tis this. That God, who doth all Nature fill 
 With His own essence, outworks will divine 
 Down to the lowest elements of time. 
 
 Matter is like a Giant, and it keeps 
 
 High court through all its builded heights and deeps 
 
 Uplifts its drawbridge, bids its banners float, 
 
 And sits secure within its guarded moat. 
 
 Like Arthur's knights or Roland's paladins, 
 
 Its champions round it throng 
 
 With wassail, wine, and song ; 
 But the stout knights ere long shall not be able, 
 To hold with all their might their own round table. 
 
 Matter is mighty ; so is a young horse, 
 Champing his bit, impatient of all force ; 
 But when his master grasps the reins 'tis then 
 He feels that horses must submit to men. 
 
 Earth, like a wild steed in the wilderness, 
 
 Circles around the City of the Sun, 
 Exulting in the ether's boundlessness ; 
 
 But in God's chariot-race Earth yet shall run.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 135 
 
 Like horses white, with manes of streaming fire, 
 
 The milky planets circle in their gyre ; 
 
 While radiant Principalities and Powers, 
 
 Whose thoughts, like lightning through the thunder-showers, 
 
 Stream through the lower space, triumphant ride. 
 
 The Lord of Life, sun-crowned, star-glorified, 
 
 Leads that victorious host. 
 They shall encompass Earth ; on every coast 
 Men shall look up to view the constellations, 
 And see the sky thronged with Angelic Nations, 
 And the blue atmosphere become like snow. 
 From rank to rank the silver trump shall blow, 
 And the great army opening its wide ranks 
 Like a bright river that o'erflows its banks 
 Shall intermingle with the sons of men. 
 Each Angel shall take his own diadem, 
 His robe of glory, and his shining vest, 
 And fold them round a mortal's brow and breast 
 Clasping his arms around that brother-mortal 
 Whose heart shall open heaven-wide, like the portal 
 Of the great city he of Patmos saw, 
 Without a spot, a wrinkle, or a flaw, 
 Divine Salvation interpenetrate 
 Each willing soul. Then shall the Eden gate 
 Re-open, and the Eden trees arise, 
 And all the world become a Paradise.
 
 136 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Then shall man's face with rapture shine, 
 While from his inmost heart, 
 
 Thy healing hand, O Lord divine, 
 Withdraws the burning dart. 
 
 Then shall the sacred manna fall, 
 
 And flow the angel-wine, 
 And earth become Love's banquet-hall, 
 
 And Truth's fraternal shrine. 
 
 Then shall electric splendor-trees 
 
 Wave in celestial blue ; 
 Electric isles fill all the seas, 
 
 While God makes all things new. 
 
 Then shall the stormy winds that blow, 
 
 Like zephyrs fan the air, 
 While Beauty clothes the world below, 
 
 And Peace is everywhere. 
 
 ,. Then shall the red volcano cease, 
 
 The earthquake sleep for aye, 
 And darkness unto light release 
 The myriads of its prey. 
 
 One God shall dwell in every breast, 
 And rule in every heart,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 137 
 
 And Angel Nations of the Blest, 
 Shall never more depart. 
 
 And Earth run brightening through its years 
 
 Those years are now begun 
 Till it ascends to heavenly spheres, 
 
 Transformed into a sun 
 
 A sun of angels, splendidly 
 
 Attired in deathless white, 
 Set in the zenith gloriously, 
 
 A heaven of pure delight ; 
 
 And every darkened spirit, now 
 
 Degraded into crime, 
 In that high heaven adoring bow 
 With angel-form sublime. 
 
 Four great continents divide 
 Earth into its separate parts : 
 
 Lust and crime are deified 
 In their mighty marts. 
 
 Four great oceans roll between 
 
 Fringed with waves of bitter green. 
 
 New-born Beauty Isles lie sleeping
 
 138 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 In the silent heart of these ; 
 Spheres of pallid light are keeping 
 Watch o'er them amid the seas. 
 
 In the still aurelian chamber 
 
 Of Earth's viewless hidden breast, 
 Streams of solar light meander. 
 
 Soon the mighty West, 
 To its inmost heart impressed, 
 Shall grow pregnant with a new 
 Race of Men. The golden blue 
 Of the Planet Jupiter, 
 And the crimson fire of Mars, 
 And the splendid golden hue 
 Of the first of all the stars, 
 In their living nerves shall stir, 
 In their veins shall interfuse. 
 
 In this race the Earth renews 
 Her illustrious splendor-line : 
 And the new-born race shall shine 
 Brightening through seven high degrees 
 Till the wide world witnesses 
 Greece and Ind idealized 
 Earthly Heaven realized. 
 
 Triumphing o'er Sin and Death,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 139 
 
 
 
 Like the Christ of Nazareth, 
 This great Nation shall become 
 
 True and wise, and good and pure, 
 
 And shall evermore endure, 
 Sitting in its Pantheon. 
 
 Art and Song shall have their home 
 
 In their new Atlantic seat, 
 
 And the cycle grow complete. 
 Up from Nature's veins shall rise 
 
 Springs of life forever flowing. 
 And the rivers of the skies, 
 
 Through the natural rivers flowing, 
 All the healing waters thrill 
 With the antidote of ill. 
 
 " Still my spirit near thee lingers, 
 
 Brother of my heart, and still 
 Presses with immortal fingers 
 
 Silently thy hand and will." 
 Thus again the charmed Mars-Maiden, 
 
 Angel of the rosy shrine, 
 Sings ; her song with love o'erladen 
 
 Melts into life's inner shrine. 
 " Rise, another wonder waits thee 
 
 In the first great heavenly halls ;
 
 HO AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 * 
 
 Rise unto the fair and stately 
 
 World of Inmost Cause." There falls 
 Soft pressure on me from a viewless hand. 
 I see around me a transparent band, 
 
 A galaxy of light, 
 
 A wonder-sphere of glory and delight, 
 A Paradise of Pleasure. I appear 
 
 To be no stranger here. 
 It floats like a pavilion in the sky ; 
 It is the emblem of eternity ; 
 Whoever dwells within its charmed ring 
 Sees the Great Spirit Cause beholds the Eternal King 
 
 As One, and not as three. 
 
 Truth is a Unit God a Unity. 
 And what is God ? According to his height 
 Of goodness, man portrays the Infinite. 
 He is He is Himself; and self-possessed, 
 Possesses all things. Worlds of angels blessed 
 Compared to Him are but as painted forms 
 Mirrored within a burning concave lens 
 Daguerreotypes of Deity that shine 
 As pictures in the palace-hall sublime 
 Of HIM WHO is. And space is but a mirror, 
 And all its glories that endure forever 
 The waking visions of the Infinite ; 
 Suns, globes of thought from his great splendor lit ; 
 Creation natural is paradise ;
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 141 
 
 All men the Adam, all their mates, the Eve, 
 Who each from God their all of life receive, 
 And sit together on the fragrant sod, 
 Lovely immortals at the feet of God ! 
 
 All things appear to me 
 From this high point to form a unity. 
 
 One center sun rolls out for aye 
 
 All globes that move in space ; 
 One Father God creates the day 
 
 All light is from His face. 
 All globes at last are changed to spheres ; 
 
 With spirit-fire they burn 
 Grow bright through God's eternal years, 
 
 And unto Him return. 
 
 Creation first existed in God's thought ; 
 Creation then was into space outwrought ; 
 Creation now is in a middle state ; 
 God doth each moment suns and heavens create. 
 The Universe itself is in its spring ; 
 Suns are like meadow-daisies blossoming, 
 And Spirit Globes aromas born of these. 
 Wave upon wave outroll the floral seas 
 Of blooming constellations. There is one
 
 142 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 God Father preexistent and alone ; 
 
 And the vast structure of the Universe 
 
 Is His own thought outsung in living verse. 
 
 God thought man into being sent a ray 
 Of splendor from His own creative day, 
 Concentering in that beam all qualities 
 From His Divine, all parts, all faculties ; 
 And man arose where all that light stood still 
 Upon the earth, a living form of will ; 
 Finite, dependent, mediate, arrayed 
 In selfhood 'twas the Infinite portrayed 
 In lowest, least molecules of space : 
 Yet God's own art made man in form and face 
 The glorious symbol of the One Divine 
 An ultimate, derived from God, in time. 
 This high philosophy o'ercomes my powers 
 Of mind ; I drop my head upon my breast, 
 A.nd my thoughts close their leaves like sunset flowers 
 I tremble into rest. 
 
 And in that rest' I rise a new degree ; 
 Superior images of Truth I see ; 
 I learn how God possesses all things, and 
 Outshapes the vastness of the sea and land, 
 And scatters suns like crystals on the floor 
 Of the blue heaven, arid causes evermore
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 141 
 
 The suns to blossom and the heavens unfold. 
 
 He plants the suns within ethereal mold 
 
 As one might plant wheat-kernels in the dust, 
 
 And they outbloom through their material crust, 
 
 Open bright chalices of painted gold 
 
 Outthrow on every side their tendrils fair, 
 
 And then take root amid the living air 
 
 Like strawberry vines ; and from each root springy fortb 
 
 Another flower, a paradise of earth. 
 
 The universes differ in degree, 
 
 In tint, in stature, and in symmetry 
 
 In varying nature, beauty, light, and bloom 
 
 In style of mind, in love, and its perfume. 
 
 As all the floral families that rise 
 
 O'er the wide Earth, some in the tropic zone 
 
 And tropic-hued, luxuriant, and vast, 
 
 Some gold and white, o'er the still water strown, 
 
 Some in the North, and delicate and faint 
 
 As the last whisper of a dying Saint. 
 
 Wisdom might classify all constellations 
 In floral groups and series. Some unfold 
 Like the great century-tree, and ages pass 
 And cycles of duration, and the glass 
 Of time renews itself ere from the mold 
 Of the electric space they gather in
 
 144 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Their precious essence. Through the ether thin, 
 Long periods of duration these must roll 
 
 All tenantless of Soul : 
 
 Then in an hour they wake, they bloom, they shine, 
 They clothe themselves with spheral robes divine 
 Millions and millions of immortal hosts 
 Throng radiant on their vast, illustrious coasts 
 Millions of worlds attend them, rolling on, 
 Blooming with spirit-life in unison, 
 And filling heaven with their arisen Nations. 
 
 Each world, created by Almighty Power, 
 Is symbolized by some terrestrial flower ; 
 The jessamine, the olive, the tuberose, 
 The lily with her bridal vail of snows ; 
 The oak, the pine, the myrtle tree, the palm, 
 Each flower of beauty, fruit, or fragrant balm ; 
 And every flower is in its destinies 
 Governed by some pure sun-sphere in the skies. 
 Metals and minerals are not less than these 
 Subject to heaven's vast, orb-like harmonies ; 
 And stars there are that correspond to all 
 The precious crystals of our earthly ball. 
 
 Great suns there are, 
 That burn afar, 
 Like diamonds in the mine
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 1 15 
 
 Some like the pearl ; 
 
 That angel-girl, 
 That spirit- friend of mine, 
 
 Adds to this woof 
 
 Another truth, 
 With mystic meaning laden, 
 
 And wisely says 
 
 That different rays 
 Insphere in youth and maiden. 
 
 There are Suns of Wisdom and Suns of Love, 
 That roll in the vault of heaven above ; 
 And the Suns of Wisdom shine in the brain, 
 But the Suns of Love in the bosom reign. 
 
 All Angels once were natural men ; 
 
 All heavens were natural earths ; 
 And Angels rise through endless spirit-births, 
 
 To God from whom they came. 
 
 This the dark mind of darkened man believes 
 In part. What man is there the truth conceives 
 That Earths become transfigured ; throb with soul, 
 
 Cease to revolve in natural time and space ; 
 And round a Center Heaven sublimely roll 
 
 Brightened from God's own face ? 
 Yet thus it is. All worlds from dust arise,
 
 146 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 And seek in highest heaven bright destinies 
 Of love and wisdom. Flower-like they appear, 
 Born in the spring of Heaven's eternal year, 
 Like violets blooming on the natural sod, 
 And their essential life exhales to God ! 
 
 Yet earths are not destroyed in burning flame ; 
 No meteor garment of red conflagration 
 Wraps them in fiery folds of desolation. 
 Worlds do not perish by a slow decay, 
 But by degrees their dust exhales away 
 Melting like music into golden light, 
 Blooming in beauty-forms that thrill the sight, 
 
 And like essential prayers 
 
 Rising through twilight airs, 
 And in the realms of ether recombined, 
 Transformed into the Palaces of Mind, 
 And made sweet love-spheres, picturing in forma 
 Of skies and seas, and atmospheres and morns, 
 Filled with all images that charm the eye, 
 And sounds that lap the soul in ecstasy, 
 The gradual growth of the interior man. 
 
 God's purpose doth with rainbow arch o'erspau 
 All realms of matter and all states of mind : 
 All matter, glorious, shall be sublimed 
 Into a universal heaven, so vast
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 147 
 
 That every world that bloomed in all the past, 
 Within its pure dominion merged, shall be 
 A note in the Celestial Harmony. 
 
 From this great altitude I now descend 
 
 The seven-fold Truths here spoken yet shall blend 
 
 And melt like music, and become the faith 
 
 Of a New World, wherein shall be no death. 
 
 A child-like Spirit takes me by the hand : 
 
 I wake, and round my waking sight expand 
 
 The pictured splendors, the long colonnades, 
 
 The statued glories, the divine arcades 
 
 Of the great Temple, in whose heart-like shrine, 
 
 In trances deep I saw these higher Wisdoms shine. 
 
 High in the middle air, like heaven, the dome 
 Of the vast Temple, carved of sapphire stone, 
 With starlit frescoes glimmering from its heights, 
 Trances my soul in wonders and delights. 
 Outblazoned there in Heaven's artistic verse, 
 The epic poem of the universe 
 Appears depicted splendidly and vast. 
 From every star a separate light is cast. 
 High in the zenith shines a center sun 
 Of golden diamond, whose rays outrun
 
 148 AN. EPIC OF THE 
 
 Through seven pure harmonies and interflow 
 Through all the dome above and all the shrine below 
 
 " We are rising, we are rising," 
 All the worlds harmonious cry, 
 " Up to God's white throne on high. 
 
 Glories evermore surprising 
 
 Dawn upon us while we rise 
 . Out of lower space and time, 
 
 To the sphere of Love Divine, 
 Where the Everlasting Eyes 
 
 Beam upon us, flowing through us, 
 
 And in God's own life renew us 
 Hark ! we hear the Father call, 
 
 And we rise as Angels rise 
 All our dust-clouds from us fall, 
 
 All our essences inroll, 
 
 And each world becomes a soul. 
 
 " Nor we alone, but all 
 Worlds through immensity 
 Shall pure world-spirits be. 
 
 " Wake ! wake ! ye Orbs, put on your robes of fire ; 
 Strike, strike, ye Planets, each your seven-fold lyre
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 149 
 
 " Your great Humanities shall all become 
 Statues of light upon the eternal walls 
 Of God's own habitation. From His throne 
 His voice descends and calls 
 
 You all to Him. 
 
 And God indraws the space wherein ye swim 
 Into a glory-sphere. Creation's globe 
 Changes into His heaven-illumined robe." 
 
 I hear a viewless choir 
 Sing this mysterious melody. It flows 
 Like summer perfume from a viewless rose. 
 
 The gradual strains retire. 
 
 Planets are gems in God's eternal crown, 
 Each with a different splendor shining down 
 Each is the symbol of a separate thought ; 
 Each from a different inner form is wrought. 
 And they shine and never weary, 
 
 For they quicken as they shine, 
 And they change, but never vary, 
 For they live from the Divine. 
 
 And their eyes with beauty glisten, 
 And their nearts with gladness thrill,
 
 150 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 And their ears forever listen 
 To the music of God's will. 
 
 And they live because God liveth, 
 And His life flows through their veins 
 
 And the life He to them giveth 
 In the great Forever reigns. 
 
 Christ, in the moment of transfiguration, 
 
 When his external form like heaven did glow, 
 And even His raiment glistened as the snow, 
 
 Revealed the destiny of the creation. 
 
 The Universe itself shall be transfigured 
 
 When the Indwelling God flows down through all. 
 Let no vain critic this false doctrine call : 
 
 From the most ancient time it was prefigured, 
 And seen in trance by Moses, John, and Paul. 
 
 In their interior life the Ancient Sages 
 
 Saw that all things Avere by one God created, 
 And to one end, like God, were splendor-fated 
 
 They saw beyond the dark and mournful ages 
 
 A Universe harmonious and immortal. 
 
 They saw God, clothed upon with robes of fire,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 151 
 
 Standing sublime in the celestial portal, 
 
 Saying to all the planets, " Come up higher." 
 
 They saw disastrous Evil drop down dead 
 
 And vanish to its own nonentity ; 
 They saw the eternal marriage-feast outspread, 
 
 And heard God say to all, " Come unto me." 
 
 God cometh now His purpose to fulfill ; 
 
 All heaven is vibrant with the expectation ; 
 Moved by His grand creative word, " I WILL !" 
 
 Earth shall bring forth a new divine creation. 
 
 In trances vast, 
 
 On me is cast 
 The ancient Prophet vision ; 
 
 The fading glooms, 
 
 The deathlesa blooms, 
 The world of spirits risen ; 
 
 The end of death, 
 
 The living breath 
 Of God through all descending ; 
 
 The Paradise, 
 
 The new-born skies, 
 The heaven with earth inblending ; 
 
 The vast Republic of the Free,
 
 152 ANEPICOFTHK 
 
 The Christ-like Nation yet to be 
 This on my vision burning, 
 
 Thrill all my veins 
 
 With music strains, 
 And fill my soul with yearning 
 
 For all mankind 
 Like me to find 
 
 A glory-fate for Nations ; 
 And see depart, 
 From every heart, 
 The reign of Desolations. 
 
 " Here ends thy day on planet Jupiter ; 
 
 So speaks that Orphic Sage. 
 
 Ere long another planetary page 
 Opens for thee, oh, Spirit-traveler."
 
 HEAVEN. 153 
 
 \ 
 
 fart iljirtmt. 
 
 SCENE. A Garden of Astral Fruit upon the Planet Jupiter; the 
 Electrical Ocean of the Solar System, and the Planet Mercury. 
 
 MAN grows like what he feeds on ; hence, in heaven, 
 Love-fruits and wisdom-fruits to men are given, 
 Formed for the quickening of the heart and mind 
 In truth and good; and when Earths grow refined, 
 Fruitage of heaven in earthly form appears, 
 And the essential virtues of the spheres 
 
 Descend, condense, cohere, 
 And like celestial fruit in Paradise appear. 
 
 All pure varieties of angel-love 
 And thoughts divine, descending from above, 
 Insphere the fragrant clusters, and impart 
 Immortal virtue to the mind and heart. 
 
 . Such food each generous bough supplies ; 
 It lights with love the beaming eyes ; 
 7*
 
 154 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Flows through the veins like spirit-fire, 
 And nerves with life each pure desire ; 
 Quickens the powers of mind and will, 
 And makes the tongue an oracle 
 Whence golden sentences distill, 
 And listening souls with rapture fill. 
 
 Each varying fruit the Angels eat 
 Brings to the soul a varying sweet ; 
 I see upon the tinted boughs 
 Rich clusters bright with crimson gold, 
 Sweet as celestial nuptial vows, 
 
 And dewy, soft, and cold. 
 And I partake, and gladness thrills 
 
 My being to its spirit-core ; 
 Each inward pulse with rapture thrills, 
 
 And joy unfelt before, 
 And as I eat, my spirit takes 
 From the vast orb its rapid flight. 
 
 I see afar 
 
 A trembling star, 
 Like a pure golden chrysolite. 
 On me a new-born glory breaks, 
 And like a winged soul I cleave 
 The lucid air whose billows wreathe
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 155 
 
 Above my head. 
 
 A new-born day 
 Is breaking on me. I survey 
 An orb so beautiful, it seems 
 Just born from out God's morning dreams. 
 
 Shaped like a hollow pearl, it lies 
 
 Where milk-white waters gently flow, 
 And music-airs all fragrant blow 
 
 From out the sun into the skies. 
 
 All delicate, serene, and faint, 
 And lovely as an angel saint, 
 Tranced in a vision of God's throne, 
 Wrapt, silent, worshiping, alone, 
 Stands the fair Planet Mercury. 
 And soft, and pale, and dreamily 
 The lovely vision dawns on me, 
 
 A world all fragrance and all bloom, 
 Of silver morn and seven-fold noon, 
 Of amber eve and night that sails 
 Out from the west on halcyon gales, 
 Breathes heaven-born fragrance on her way 
 And seems young sister to the Day. 
 
 And such a world, no mortal verse
 
 156 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Hath e'er essayed to paint its form, 
 So soft, so clear, so bright and warm. 
 It seems an Infant Universe ; 
 The miniature of all completeness, 
 The living soul of heavenly sweetness ; 
 Fair as a boy-god laid asleep 
 
 Beneath immortal trees, 
 
 Whom angel Harmonies 
 Forever watch and keep. 
 
 An ocean like a golden ring 
 
 Around its bright equator shines ; 
 Isles crimson-hued and blossoming, 
 
 Like heaven's own deathless climes, 
 Are stars in these elysian waters ; 
 And beauty in them dwells 
 Weaving delicious spells, 
 Blending in union sweet her radiant sons and daughters. 
 
 Near every Islet's marge 
 
 Full many a golden barge 
 Appears moved on by wings of lucent snow. 
 Like snow-white eagles in their motion, these 
 
 Flit o'er the glimmering seas. 
 
 And far, oh, far below, 
 Beneath the living ocean, land appears, 
 Covered by water as by crystal spheres,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 157 
 
 Where forms of Beauty dwell in bowers of green, 
 And looking upward through the wave serene, 
 Behold bright barks above the surface driven, 
 As Man on Earth shall yet see angel fleets in heaven. 
 
 Love enchanted, 
 
 Beauty haunted, 
 Tranced in wonder and surprise, 
 
 All my being 
 
 Merged in seeing, 
 I descend from out the skies. 
 And the sky is all a temple 
 
 Filled with statue-forms of grace ; 
 These angelic souls resemble, 
 And each hath an angel's face. 
 
 And the sky above me glimmers 
 Like a cloud of gold and white, 
 
 And an angel empire shimmers 
 
 Through the half-transparent light ; 
 
 Faces holy, blessed, glorious, 
 Faces loving, pure, victorious, 
 Faces varying in splendor ; 
 Faces soft and calm and tender, 
 Looking down in so much love 
 From their golden heights above,
 
 158 AN EPIC OF THE. 
 
 That they trance my spirit deep 
 In a heaven-revealing sleep. 
 
 Eastward, where the holy sun 
 Shines above the horizon, 
 He appears an orb of angels, 
 Each of whom in form resembles 
 Christ, the Lord of Nazareth. 
 Thrilling with melodious breath, 
 All the air becomes a sea 
 Of divinest ecstasy, 
 For the sunlight is a song, 
 And the song-waves interflow, 
 Till they bathe the world below 
 With the rapture of the throng 
 Who appear amid the globe 
 Of the sun's translucent robe. 
 All the rays of morning shine 
 Natural, human, and Divine ! 
 
 I see a city which the rising sun 
 
 Shines on and wakes ; the mighty city lies 
 
 Four square : its gates are pearls ; each precious stone 
 Is builded in its battlements ; they rise 
 Like sculptured and immortal harmonies. 
 Within the city is a golden ring, 
 Where Eden trees all fragrant blossoming
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 159 
 
 In mystic seven-fold spiral order stand. 
 Elysian airs, melodious and bland, 
 And cool as crystal snow 
 Upon my temples blow ; 
 And underneath the immortal trees 
 I see such lovely companies 
 Maidens, and youths, and kingly man and woman, 
 And little children fair, 
 Whose varying faces wear 
 A look at once divine, angelic, human, 
 
 That all my being longs 
 To dwell forever 'mid the happy throngs, 
 
 To be a little child, 
 Gazing forever in those faces mild. 
 
 Their forms are perfect symmetry ; 
 
 Each atom is an harmony ; 
 And through the outer form the spirit shines. 
 The outer form the inner soul enshrines 
 In loveliness, so perfect that no art 
 Can picture it. The form, the mind, the heart, 
 The eye, the soul, each separate faculty, 
 Blended in one complete Humanity, 
 Is like a separate sphere in heaven serene. 
 Such beauty never on the Earth was seen, 
 
 So delicate, so calm. 
 The fragrant airs these radiant shapes embalm,
 
 160 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 As if sweet odors could alone be made 
 
 Fit raiment for each peerless youth and maid. 
 
 Each being is in its own light arrayed, 
 
 And moves encompassed by a glory-sphere, 
 
 Wherein all radiant images appear, 
 
 Of suns, and moons, and stars, and spheral forms, 
 
 And flowers, and skies, and splendor-tinted morns ; 
 
 Wherefrom each noble shape shines forth as glows 
 
 The upper heaven with its transcendent shows 
 
 Of angel faces from the mist of light, 
 
 Which, while it vails, reveals it to the sight. 
 
 Ere many years have passed, there shall appear 
 
 A white, electric Island in the seas 
 
 Of the Pacific, tenanted by these 
 Transcendent forms ; and voyagers shall hear 
 Music outstealing in the twilight dim, 
 So sweet that they shall fancy it a hymn 
 Sung out of heaven by Angels round God's throne. 
 . That Mystic Isle shall be 
 Encompassed by a luminous, vailing zone, 
 
 Like a white dome rising from out the sea. 
 No man can pass within it. There shall rise 
 
 A blooming Paradise 
 Of spirits pure and wise, and all arrayed 
 Like souls in Mercury, and like them made
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 161 
 
 Harmonic, and each one the sacred shrine 
 Of holiness, and love, and truth divine. 
 
 And there shall be above Earth's firmament 
 Bright sun-spheres, formed of spirit-light, inblent 
 With solar essences, and through their light 
 Myriads of Angel forms outgleam on natural sight. 
 
 Whole companies of men on earth shall grow 
 Enamored of the Beauty Forms, that stand 
 Revealed in ether from the Morning Land, 
 And call these bright ones from the sky with prayers, 
 And they shall quite forget all meaner cares, 
 Lost in that nobler love. And these shall come 
 Nearer and nearer from their distant home, 
 Until they float above the streets, and walk 
 O'er the bright spires, and men shall hear them talk 
 In language audible, whose every note 
 Upon the air shall like a blessing float ; 
 And where these radiant, moving shapes outgleam, 
 Floating the Heavens and the Earth between, 
 Millions shall gather and shall call to them. 
 
 They shall respond again, 
 
 And speak in their love-languaged human tongues, 
 And sing to them their pure, celestial songs, 
 And say to men, " Be pure, be holy, learn 
 To lift the lowly, cease the poor to spurn ;
 
 162 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Be just, be temperate, merciful, and cease 
 All strife, and let divine and blessed Peace 
 Rule your heart's motion ; and when this is done 
 We will descend, each pure and radiant one." 
 
 Ah, me ! I see them, and I hear them say, 
 " Already dawns for earth the blest immortal day ; 
 Already opes for Earth Love's endless page, 
 And brightens in the new Saturnian Age !" 
 
 As whitest silver through discordant air 
 Seems clothed in black, yet is forever fair, 
 So Seers on the Earth, through shaded eyes 
 Befilmed with sense, have seen dense shadows rise, 
 And, looking outward through this clouded pane 
 In the great window of the world, have seen 
 Spirits from Mercury, not as they reign, 
 Supreme in goodness, with benignant mien, 
 And silver whiteness, but as gross in stature, 
 Dark in complexion, ignoble in nature. 
 
 Few will believe how exquisite, how clear, 
 These radiant men of Mercury appear, 
 Statues of diamond, robed in golden flame, 
 Single in thought, in speech, in will and aim, 
 Emblems of faith and charity, with souls
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 163 
 
 No base, material appetite controls, 
 With hands that call out music, rich and rare, 
 From the electric stops and keys of air, 
 With breath of hyacinth, and lips that thrill 
 The eye that gazes on them, and distill 
 Elysian sweetness. 
 
 In a purple chamber 
 
 Whose roof is formed of emerald vines, that wander 
 Out into clearest etherTit their will, 
 And all the room with summer fragrance fill, 
 And every morning glow with added lusters, 
 And every eve mature delicious clusters 
 Of fruit, each sense with ecstasy to fill 
 
 Whose floors are formed of amber, 
 
 Within whose veins meander 
 Swift-streaming currents of perpetual youth 
 
 Where golden dew-drops ever, 
 
 Like mists from Heaven's own river, 
 Rise to refresh the vine-blossoms in the roof 
 
 Seated upon a dais 
 
 A bright Maid-" Melotais" 
 For so I hear the maiden called by name 
 
 Sits caroling a paean 
 
 Whose love-notes thrill my being, 
 Holding a silver lyre whose chords are flame. 
 
 " Hark ! hark ! through the charmed silence
 
 1 64 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Listen to my song. 
 Hark ! hark ! In these happy Islands 
 
 All our lives flow on 
 Like the flow of a celestial river 
 Through the land of peace and love forever. 
 
 " Hark ! hark ! When the Morn appeareth, 
 Every brow a sun-like emblem weareth ; 
 Kindles every mind with wisdom grand. 
 
 All our minds in union 
 With the Father hold divine communion. 
 In the Father's thought we seem to stand 
 
 An Immortal band, 
 
 While the glory-sphere of His own Presence, 
 Smiling, shining, fills our hearts with pleasance ; 
 
 And we go 
 Rapid as the swift-winged Zephyrs flow. 
 
 " And our thoughts like doves float on before us, 
 And our prayers like angels warble o'er us, 
 And our gladness fills the air with sweets 
 Every heart its kindred spirit greets. 
 
 " Holy lovers interflow 
 In sweet marriage bowers below ; 
 In the sacred sphere they lie 
 Of the Lord's Humanity
 
 STARRY HEAVEN". 165 
 
 Even in slumber worshiping 
 Heaven's eternal Father-King! 
 
 " Hearken ! hearken to my story ; 
 Each one bears a separate glory, 
 And all splendors intershine, 
 Making all our race divine. 
 And our world is all a grove, 
 
 Even beneath the smiling sea, 
 Where immortal angels rove, 
 
 And immortal lovers be. 
 
 " Fading, fading, fading bloom 
 Darkening, darkening, darkening gloom- 
 Dying, dying, dying life, 
 Burning, burning, burning strife, 
 Weary night and wasting day, 
 Dull and pitiless decay, 
 On our orb are never known. 
 Like a lamp before God's throne 
 Burns our Planet undefiled ; 
 Nay, it is an angel-child 
 In serenest ether playing, 
 In the Eden gardens maying ; 
 Beautiful, and wise, and free 
 As a thought of Deity. 
 
 * 
 " Evermore with gladness burning,
 
 166 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 Evermore temptation spurning, 
 
 Evermore for heaven-life yearning, 
 
 Evermore to God returning, 
 
 All we blest celestials are. 
 
 And our Planet like a car 
 
 Through the milk-white ether moves, 
 
 Bearing us from loves to loves." 
 
 In her hand a hollow pearl 
 Takes this blessed Angel-girl, 
 Filling it with golden wine 
 From the sweet, undying vine, 
 Mixed with water, pure and clear. 
 Bubbling from the amber sphere. 
 
 This the Maiden gives to me ; 
 
 " This," she saith, " thy soul will free 
 
 From the shades that intervene." 
 
 As I drink I fall asleep. 
 
 Calm, and still, and pure, and deep 
 
 Is my slumber. 
 
 I awake 
 Where the crystal morning-beam 
 
 Plays upon a quiet lake. 
 Overhead in air is seen 
 Palace, temple, shrine, and spire 
 Many a deathless Angel-choir,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 
 
 Worlds of spirit-beauty clear, 
 Mirrored through the atmosphere. 
 
 And the radiant visions glow 
 In the tranquil wave below. 
 For the waters correspond 
 To the Soul, that sees beyond 
 Outward vails, and in its breast, 
 Picturing visions of the blest, 
 Hath a deep interior sense 
 Inner life's effulgent lense. 
 
 On its brink a temple stands, 
 And a floral grove expands 
 All around the radiant pool ; 
 And that temple is a school 
 
 For the heart ; and o'er its portal 
 Groups of sculptured cherubim, 
 
 Forms of Truth and Love immortal, 
 Cast upon the fountain's brim 
 Golden light from out their eyes. 
 
 Traced in tinted harmonies 
 O'er the massive entrance shine 
 These inter ior-thoughted lines : 
 " Truth is daylight for the Soul ; 
 Love bespeaks the present God ; 
 
 167
 
 1G8 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Through the heart is found the road 
 To Perfection's endless goal." 
 
 " Thought is the Spirit's bread ; 
 By thought the Mind is fed. 
 The holy, wise, and good, 
 From Thought derive their food. 
 Thought makes the spirit strong, 
 Nerves it against the Wrong, 
 Turns in its ward the key 
 That opes Eternity. 
 
 " Thought liveth in the light ; 
 Thought breathes in Love's delight ; 
 Thought blossoms in the trees ; 
 Thought throbs in tidal seas. 
 
 " Thought grows complete in man ; 
 The thinker and the plan, 
 The spirit and the shrine, 
 The hand and work combine, 
 And God, who built the whole, 
 Works in the working soul. 
 
 " More than the sky and earth,
 
 STARRY HKAVEN. 169 
 
 Immortal from his birth, 
 Man doth inherit these, 
 Grasping the master keys 
 Of all their unknown shrines, 
 Of all revolving times. 
 
 " The passing centuries 
 That saw his form arise 
 Die down into the Past : 
 His works their days outlast ; 
 He groweth when they cease, 
 And all his days are peace. 
 
 " Through man, One Man Divine, 
 God made all heavens that shine. 
 Through all the angelic race 
 God shall the heavens replace. 
 Each man shall yet become 
 The center and the home 
 Of galaxies of thought 
 Within his being wrought ; 
 And God through him shall build 
 New earths and heavens to gild 
 A mightier, fairer time. 
 
 " In man, as in a clime 
 Of causes, God works on 
 
 8
 
 170 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Shaping through man his son, 
 Creations new and fair. 
 Breath is the soul of air. 
 The spheres of light men wear 
 Are germs of Planets vast. 
 In mighty aeons past 
 
 " God worked through Christ, the Lord, 
 The One, Deific Word, 
 And through him made all things, 
 The planets and their rings. 
 The suns and all their spheres, 
 The seasons and the years 
 Through Him the Infinite 
 Shone with creative light. 
 
 " All men shall yet become 
 Mind-organs of the Son, 
 Heart-organs of the Lord ; 
 Another, mightier Word. 
 This period shall befall 
 When God is all in all. 
 
 " Then shall the planets end ; 
 All heavens in one shall blend, 
 Forming a glory-sphere, 
 Wherein God shall appear.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 171 
 
 All souls that ever were 
 Burning in that pure air 
 Shall reappear as one, 
 And this God's Only Son. 
 
 " All men to God return, 
 With life perpetual burn ; 
 Finding in God their home, 
 Dwelling beneath the dome, 
 Dwelling within the shrine, 
 Thinking the thought sublime, 
 Breathing the holy joy, 
 Working the vast employ, 
 Wearing the radiant robe, 
 Inhabiting the globe, 
 And made the sentient form 
 Of the Great Eldest Born. 
 
 " Then shall a new decree, 
 
 A new immensity, 
 
 From out their thoughts evolve 
 
 A second sun revolve 
 
 In seven-fold spiral rings, 
 
 And all men shall be kings, 
 
 Wearing God's own bright robe 
 
 Throned each upon a globe.
 
 172 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 " God's joy is to create ; 
 He makes men spirits great, 
 That they may find employ 
 In working out His joy." 
 
 These mystic words I read : 
 A spirit saith, " Take heed ; 
 Each burning truth inset 
 In thy soul's coronet ; 
 For thou shalt yet bestow 
 These truths on men below. 
 
 " Thy world shall yet become 
 The paradise and home 
 Of men, Avho then shall be 
 Symbols of Deity. 
 
 " That God, who in the leaves 
 Imprints His thought, and weaves 
 The purposes of fate, 
 Mankind shall re-create. 
 
 " Plants in Earth's air shall bloom, 
 And each aerial plume 
 Distill immortal sweets 
 Upon thy earthly streets. 
 Instead, of clouds outspread
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 173 
 
 In ether o'er thy head, 
 
 Electric palaces 
 
 Shine from amid the skies. 
 
 And spirit-birds descend, 
 Singing in leafy trees, 
 Gliding o'er all the seas : 
 
 Their music-notes shall blend 
 With birds of lower space. 
 The delicate, sweet face 
 Of every living child 
 Ne'er be by wrong defiled. 
 The pure, immortal heart 
 Ne'er feel Sin's burning dart. 
 The fever and the chill, 
 The opposite states of ill, 
 The languor, and intense, 
 Delirious life of sense, 
 All end in calm divine. 
 
 " Spirals of light shall climb 
 All visible to man, 
 To where the heaven's blue span 
 Melts in the Spirit Sphere. 
 The blood-drop and the tear 
 Be witnessed never more. 
 The ocean's glassy floor 
 Shall be envailed in bloom.
 
 174 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Winter and storm and gloom 
 No longer shall find place 
 On Earth's immortal face. 
 
 " Men shall to heaven aspire : 
 Cars of electric fire 
 Through heaven shall bear them on. 
 Like the white-breasted swan, 
 Man shall possess the deeps. 
 Where now the thunder leaps, 
 From cloud to cloud, shall be 
 Celestial minstrelsy. 
 
 " Earth's pure, Harmonic Age 
 Must come. The idle rage 
 Of priest and potentate 
 Can not close heaven's high gate ; 
 Above the monarch's pride 
 Immortal Angels ride ; 
 Above the Bigot's frown 
 Glows every Angel's crown ; 
 Above the Atheist's hate 
 Is Heaven's eternal state. 
 
 Even now Earth wakes from sleep : 
 With life its pulses leap. 
 Voices of spirits thrill
 
 STARR V HEAVEN. 175 
 
 The ether at their will. 
 Man knoweth not how strong 
 Is heaven's descending throng. 
 It needeth but a breath 
 And outward forms expire, 
 One pulse of spirit-fire 
 And man is lord of Death. 
 
 " Fragrant and full of flowers 
 The graveyards yet shall be ; 
 And, blooming 'mid the sea, 
 Builded by heavenly powers, 
 Condensed, electric, vast, 
 New Isles shall yet stand fast. 
 God hath declared that Earth, 
 From this time everforth, 
 Shall rise, forever rise, 
 Through all eternities.
 
 17G AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 SCENE. Interior of a School of Love upon the Planet Mercury. 
 
 " ENTER, Mortal, to our school ; 
 Here celestial Love bears rule 
 Enter, Mortal." Thus I hear 
 Warbling voices, calm and clear. 
 
 I stand within a marble hall ; 
 
 It is like crystal, clear and white ; 
 In music sweet my footsteps fall ; 
 
 Its roof's a floor of golden light, 
 An ether-sphere, serene and pure, 
 
 In its own radiance far too bright 
 For my thought's vision to endure. 
 
 " Brother," a radiant maiden says, 
 On whose bright head a glory plays,
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 177 
 
 " The mighty secrets of the art 
 
 Of Him who built the universe 
 Shall here be shown to thee in part." 
 
 Again I hear that Orphic verse : 
 " Man is the Lord of all below ; 
 Through man God's thoughts, outworking, flow." 
 
 The shining Maiden says to me, 
 
 " Spirit, concenter all thy thought, 
 And thou shalt see it visibly 
 
 Before thine eyes outwrought." 
 
 Up, like an eagle to the sun, 
 
 My spirit rises to God's throne. 
 
 I think of God ! my thought becomes a zone 
 
 Of seven-fold light. All glorious, throned therein, 
 
 Shine pictures of immortal seraphim. 
 
 Thus rapt Ezekiel once, by Chebar's bank, 
 
 The cup of inspiration inly drank, 
 
 And the great chariot-wheels of God swept by, 
 
 Pervaded by the life of Deity. 
 
 I see a Form, I inly see, 
 
 Seated upon a diamond globe, 
 
 Wearing creation like a robe, 
 
 And like a statue, that great thought 
 
 Into electric form is wrought. 
 8*
 
 178 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Again I think. I form a sun 
 
 Of thought within my inmost mind ; 
 Electric rays together run 
 
 In outward space my thought I find. 
 I see a golden orb that burns, 
 Kindled from out the morning iirns ; 
 And on my vision while I gaze 
 That sun in living radiance plays. 
 
 I think again : I think of one 
 
 Who loved me dearly long ago, 
 But vanished into worlds unknown, 
 While into dust her form was thrown. 
 Beneath the winter snow. 
 
 My inward thought becomes a shape : 
 Exterior form I see it take ; 
 A form of matron beauty pale, 
 Robed in a shining glory-vail, 
 While love, amid her azure eyes, 
 Shines from Love's inward paradise. 
 
 " 'Tis thus the Mind outworks in space 
 And image-forms of light and grace 
 Creates amid the spheral air. 
 This truth, Man, to earth declare " 
 A spiritual voice says loud.
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 179 
 
 My head, obedient, thrice is bowed. 
 " Twas by this power the Saviour fed 
 Three thousand with five loaves of bread ; 
 And changed, through truth of love divine, 
 The water to innoxious wine. 
 The power of thought, outborn of love, 
 
 Superior is to outward dust, 
 
 For matter is but shining rust, 
 And Mind is throned its forms above. 
 
 " Thy world again shall wonders see 
 The New Creation yet to be. 
 Electric steeds shall paw the air, 
 Electric chariots angels bear ; 
 Electric ships outsail from heaven, 
 By an interior will-power driven. 
 Electric cannon yet shall pour 
 
 Their fiery charge, and change the fate 
 
 Of lands predestined to a great 
 
 Free destiny of yore. 
 Electric lions, beautiful, 
 Shall seek on lower earth their kind, 
 And magnetize with power of mind 
 Their earthly mates, till they fulfill 
 The ancient prophecy, grow mild 
 And dally with the unweaned child. 
 The firmament shall all become
 
 180 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 A spiritual pantheon, 
 
 And every spirit good and great, 
 
 Appear therein with sovereign state. 
 
 No outward language can express 
 
 The joys that then the world shall bless ; 
 
 But what the lips refuse to tell 
 
 The heart shall feel. All, all is well !" 
 
 Only, O man, as thou art free 
 From pride, and lust, and bigotry ; 
 Inspired with heavenly charity, 
 Can this deliverance come for thee. 
 
 Only, O man, as thou dost cease 
 Thy civic feuds, and live in peace, 
 And give unto the poor release ; 
 
 Only as thou abjurest self, 
 
 Lovest thy Brother more than pelf, 
 
 And drivest out the impish elf, 
 
 Sectarian pride, from all thy heart, 
 Canst thou have place, or lot, or part 
 Within the Heaven-created mart 
 
 Of angel love and angel bliss ;
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 181 
 
 And when thy bosom fmdeth this 
 Thy lips shall feel the Spirit's kiss. 
 
 " Love God and man !" This ancient creed 
 Must be outwrought in daily deed, 
 Or thou art helpless in thy need. 
 
 Love God in man. He asks no more. 
 He only doth his God adore 
 Who loves his brother evermore. 
 
 In love all things begin and end ; 
 Through love man doth to God ascend, 
 And talk wilh him as friend with friend. 
 
 Love stands to ope the Morning gates, 
 Whence shall descend Angelic Fates 
 The Genii of Fraternal States. 
 
 Love lifts her angel-finger high ; 
 
 And as she points, the brightening sky 
 
 Kindles with Immortality. 
 
 Love hath one mighty end in view 
 Tis this : God's Eden to renew, 
 And make all things divinely new. 
 
 And Love shall conquer at the last ;
 
 182 ANEPICOFTHE 
 
 Evil shall vanish like a blast, 
 And the disasters of the Past, 
 
 Like death-clouds from an Angel Soul, 
 Depart ; and Love shall all control, 
 And Earth itself toward the goal 
 Of highest heaven forever roll. 
 
 Man is the true Republic. Earth shall sec 
 
 A New Democracy, 
 
 A New Theocracy, 
 
 The Priesthood of the Free ! 
 
 Inspired Lawgivers rise, 
 
 And from sublimer skies 
 Receive interior wisdom, and create 
 
 The Universal State ; 
 
 And the old Dynasties, 
 
 Like dead Behemoth, petrify. 
 All forms of Moral Evil die. 
 All equities in heaven originate, 
 From Heaven descends the Universal State. 
 
 Oh, Earth ! there doth even now for thee await 
 A fierce, red conflagration, that shall sweep 
 All forms of wrong like sparks into the deep.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 183 
 
 Thy Robber Titans, Earth, who build on high 
 The impious Babylon of Slavery, 
 Seeking to 'scape the approaching flood, shall be 
 Scattered ; their very foot-prints none shall see. 
 The flowers of love and liberty shall bloom 
 On their forgotten tomb. 
 
 Archangels shall assume electric forms, 
 And shine from heaven above the Battle-storms, 
 And magnetize the Hosts with charity. 
 The banner of divine Equality, 
 
 High in the heavens unfurled, 
 Shall wave above a liberated world. 
 
 Men shall be Christians then, in word and act, 
 Pledging each other in the solemn pact 
 
 Of Brotherhood and Right. 
 
 On every mountain height 
 Colossal Images of Truth and Love, 
 And Faith and Charity, shall point above 
 With angel-finger. 
 
 Man no more shall vail 
 
 His freeborn thought, or bow with visage pale, 
 And knees that knock together, when the Priest 
 Of Rome or Oxford dictates. 
 
 The great beast 
 Of Calvinism, born from out the sea
 
 184 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Of the Dark Ages and their tyranny, 
 Shall shrink into a spectral cloud, and pass 
 From earth like vapor from a burning-glass. 
 And the Imperial Harlot of the Earth, 
 From whose accursed womb all hideous shapes have birth, 
 Of dogma, creed, and mind-oppressing rite, 
 Shall vail her face in the last cloud of night 
 
 Fall from her seven-hilled throne, 
 And her unburied body disappear. , 
 Then shall arise the glorious Christian Rome, 
 
 And Liberty renew her Pantheon ! 
 Sublimely then each Martyr reappear 
 
 From his Supernal Sphere. 
 Then the Free Earth shall bury Antichrist, 
 And celebrate the great, fraternal feast 
 Where now red Cardinals like adders coil 
 On the Italian soil. 
 
 So long as human lips remain unfed, 
 
 Men starve their Christ for lack of coarsest bread ; 
 
 Where'er a single bondsman fettered stands, 
 
 Men chain their Christ and bind their Saviour's hands. 
 
 Where'er a single Orphan inly dies, 
 
 Or grows embruted in their factories, 
 
 Like old King Herod they again condemn 
 
 To death the infant Lord of Bethlehem.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 185 
 
 And when they spurn the outcast from their doors, 
 While the thick darkness sweeps along the plain, 
 They drive out Christ into the storm and rain, 
 
 Frozen, to perish on the barren moors. 
 
 Great, wealthy Churches, yet a little while 
 Your wealth, amassed by fraud, retained by guile, 
 Shall burn within you and around you roll 
 With flaming billows of avenging fire ; 
 
 While the Eternal Soul 
 Of Christ shall summon all the hungry poor 
 Whom ye have driven with curses from your door, 
 
 And ye yourselves expire. 
 
 Old Frauds shall come to light, and witnesses, 
 Long buried in the dungeons or the seas, 
 Shall speak out audibly. 
 
 Great names that now 
 Stand loftily and proud with laureled brow, 
 Shall shrivel as a parchment cast in flames. 
 
 White hands shall then grow red with bloody stains, 
 
 And gaudy dames of fashion, who have driven 
 
 Up the broad carriage-road to Fancy's heaven, . 
 
 Shall by the world be known for what they are. 
 
 Their pomps and vanities to dust returning, 
 
 Their robes of state in flames electric burning,
 
 18G AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Shall leave them naked, and reveal the scar 
 
 Pride left, when from the cold yet quivering breast 
 
 He tore out Heart, stole all the bosom loves, 
 And filled with adders foul their rifled nest. 
 
 From every Bigot's breast in that great day 
 A visible serpent shall spring forth and strike 
 At every thing that glistens fair and white ; 
 
 And lizards in his rancorous throat shall play. 
 And Statesmen, choked with their own falsehoods, die 
 
 Like Judas, inasmuch as they like him 
 Have sold their Christ, betraying Liberty. 
 
 Eyes with- the bitter tears of misery dim 
 
 Shall weep no more. The Saviour of the Poor 
 
 Shall visibly stand, bowing His sacred head 
 
 Beneath the rafters of the lowliest shed, 
 
 And kiss the pallid lips of agony, 
 
 And smooth the wrinkles of the furrowed brow ; 
 
 I thank thee, Lord, thou comest here and now ! 
 
 'Tis all in vain 
 To fetter Freedom in the Saviour's name : 
 
 He cometh to release 
 Earth's captives, and to bring eternal peace. 
 
 This is the judgment. Evil builds its tomb
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 187 
 
 And wraps itself in fiery robes of doom. 
 
 Evil is like a scorpion vainly tries 
 
 Truth to destroy and stings itself, and dies. 
 
 God leaves the Sects like wolves to eat each other ; 
 Each Sectary sees in wolf-like shape his brother, 
 And hunts him to the death, and laps his blood, 
 And grows delirious from that human food, 
 Drives his own fangs in his own poisoned veins, 
 And his own life-blood drains. 
 
 Evil subsists in ceaseless strife and hate ; 
 
 This is its final fate : 
 Left to itself it shall at last expire 
 
 Like fire that meeteth fire. 
 
 'Tis but a little while, 
 And earth again like Paradise shall smile ; 
 All things must ultimate in good at last, 
 Freedom, and Truth, and Love their glory cast 
 On happy Earth, the fair and love-born child 
 On whose new birth Heaven like a mother smiled. 
 
 Man, dignified, ennobled, lifted high, 
 And reunited with Humanity,
 
 J 88 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Shall glow with Rafaelle tints in mind and face, 
 
 And vie with Angels in the upward race ; 
 
 Think through his heart, and through his bosom see, 
 
 And breathe from heaven the breath of charity ; 
 
 And his white-thoughted intellect be made 
 
 A crystal glass, wherein shall be displayed ' 
 
 The reflex image of divine abodes. 
 
 Ancient Parnassus with its mythic gods 
 
 Shall be transcended on the natural earth ; 
 
 And man's interior worth 
 
 Exterior form and hue shall take, and fold 
 
 His soul in shape more grand than those of old 
 
 That Phidias sculptured, or that Homer sang, 
 
 When the twelve cities with the paean rang. 
 
 All the old legends shall be verified. 
 
 In man such vital influence reside, 
 
 That herbs of meanest look touched by his hand 
 
 Into auroral blossom shall expand. 
 
 And the coiled serpent, quickened by his power, 
 
 Become a winged globe, a spiral flower, 
 
 An animated beauty-form, whose flight 
 
 Shall be like some fair meteor through the night ; 
 
 His hiss be changed to tones like any flute, 
 
 And heard through air like an ^Eolian lute 
 
 Distilling liquid cadence ; and his tongue, 
 
 Poisoned no more, shall be to children young
 
 S T A R R V HEAVEN. 
 
 A lovely flame-flower. He shall lick their hands, 
 And dwell with doves conjoined in circling bands. 
 
 Matter itself shall be renewed with all 
 Celestial powers. The dark, earthly ball, 
 Like an immortal heart, shall thrill with life 
 And love, which is life manifest. The strife 
 Of hostile elements, the slow decay 
 Of Races, wearing by degrees away, 
 Shall terminate, and all the Nations then, 
 Like highest heaven's harmonic angel-men, 
 Unfold forever, till at last they rise 
 Together from the earth into the skies. 
 
 Genius shall then pertain to all mankind, 
 
 And inspiration thrill 
 
 Each human heart and will, 
 And Deity pervade the common mind ; 
 Earth speak from out its depths in harmony, 
 And through the tidal pulses of the sea 
 
 Her inward melody 
 Outbreathe. 
 
 Then Earth shall say unto the stars 
 " Listen, bright myriads, unto you I call !" 
 And the Star-Spirits, from their diamond hall, 
 Shall loving answer Earth ; and all the scars 
 
 189
 
 190 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Of desolation, all the accursed Past, 
 From her untroubled spirit fade at last. 
 
 Then with their crowns of fire 
 
 The Planetary Choir 
 Shall circle with the Earth in music sweet ; 
 
 And Earth, with new-found tongue, 
 
 Join their immortal song, 
 And the grand solar orchestra complete.
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 191 
 
 fart li 
 
 SCENE. The Sea of Glass, mingled with Fire, seen anciently in 
 Vision by St. John. 
 
 I SEE an Angel, holding in his hand 
 
 A mighty volume with a seven-fold seal. 
 He touches, and the radiant leaves expand, 
 
 And music from it, like a thunder-peal 
 Awful in grandeur, penetrates my breast. 
 
 I wake, and oh, how blest ! 
 My spirit rises to a spirit-sphere 
 
 Whose crystal floor is interfused with fire ; 
 Immortal harpers gloriously appear, 
 
 Each calling music from a heart-shaped lyre, 
 All circling round a shrine, 
 
 Filled with ineffable light from One Divine. 
 
 Out from the shrine come thunderings and voices 
 Whereat the Angel-host, as one, rejoices.
 
 192 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 Hark ! hark ! I hear them sing, 
 
 " Prepare, Earth, prepare to greet thy King!" 
 
 In that great Book I see a vision shine : 
 A Spirit, with a countenance divine, 
 Touching a planet with a golden rod. 
 That orb is earth that form divine is God ! 
 A seven-fold shaft of elemental light 
 
 Flows downward from the face of Deity ; 
 Earth feels the Spirit of the Infinite. 
 
 I view the darkness fade from land and sea. 
 
 Earth, Lazarus-like, lay buried, but One spoke 
 And said, " Arise !" 
 
 Then the last morning broke. 
 
 Earth wears her graveclothes yet the outward forms 
 Of sect and party. 
 
 O'er her head the storms 
 Are parting. A great rainbow shines above ; 
 
 Thereon, entranced, I read, 
 Effulgent, the inscription, " God is Love !" 
 
 Archangel hands unloose, O Earth, thy shroud : 
 Archangel forms shine from beyond the cloud. 
 A moment, and Earth shall be free indeed.
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 193 
 
 fart Slixtnn. 
 
 SCENE. The Planet Mercury, and the Spiritual Paradise by which 
 it is inclosed 
 
 ON the orb Mercury are gems which are 
 Thought-magnets, as the needle on its bar 
 Points to the region of the Northern Star ; 
 
 And as the Spirit flies to its own place 
 
 Where Angels, clothed upon with heavenly grace, 
 
 Move with it in the everlasting race ; 
 
 The magnet being God's throne, the Spirit Sun, 
 
 Whereto all Angels in affection run, 
 
 And where all varying heavens converge in one ; 
 
 So on this Planet pure all minds incline 
 To crystal magnets, which from Power Divine 
 Have virtue in their substance crystalline, 
 9
 
 194 AN EPIC OF THE 
 
 To trance the nature in celestial bliss. 
 
 That Mighty Angel saith to me, " Take this," 
 
 And places in my hand a gem that is 
 
 A seven-fold crystal. Now it melts into 
 My hand ; now to my heart, as heavenly dew 
 Melts in a flower ; I feel my life renew. 
 
 Pure, diamond thoughts, like crystals, through me flow. 
 The River of Heaven, whose waves reflect the glow 
 Of God's own brightness wheresoe'er they go, 
 
 In spheral music undulates through me. 
 The air is filled with Angels, and I see 
 A crystal dome, outpicturing gloriously 
 
 All forms, all images. It is a dome 
 Whose outer concave is the radiant home 
 Of Spirits who from Mercury have gone. 
 
 It clasps their Planet. 'Tis a hollow sphere, 
 
 And from it, mirrored in the water clear, 
 
 And breathed in sweetest sound, I see and hear 
 
 The splendors and the melodies that bless 
 That Upper Home with joy and tenderness. 
 Angels have human hearts, and they caress
 
 STARRYHEAVEN. 195 
 
 Each other, and each angel-maid is fair 
 And sits in heaven's transparence. 
 
 Happy pair, 
 Descending from your crystal realm of air, 
 
 Tell me, I pray, the nature of that state 
 Wherein ye dwell ? What influence doth create 
 The vastness of your empire, wise and great ? 
 
 Slowly assembling in the air, I see 
 
 A flock of strange, bright birds ; the crystal sea 
 
 Of ether vibrates Avith their melody. 
 
 And now the Youth and Maiden on me turn 
 Their deep impassioned eyes, that glow and burn 
 With love so pure, I feel my spirit yearn 
 
 With aspirations for a life Divine. 
 
 Now their full, blended souls inflow through mine. 
 
 My pulses thrill with music as with wine. 
 
 I hear them sing, and as they sing, their words 
 Like shining particles transform to birds, 
 And every bird in shape and song accords 
 
 With the interior melody they sing ; 
 These birds fly forth, in rapture caroling, 
 And sweep around with rapid, radiant wing,
 
 196 AN KPIC OF THE 
 
 And then dissolve like music notes, and pass 
 Like sunbeams through the crystal air. 
 
 Alas! 
 The vision ends. The angel takes the glass. 
 
 My hand grows paralyzed. I feel as one 
 Who sees the full-orbed splendor of the sun 
 Eclipse and vanish, just as day's begun. 
 
 The Angel opes his lips ; 
 My soul arises from its deep eclipse. 
 " Brother," he says, " incorporate this truth 
 Into thy mental nature's warp and woof. 
 Stretch forth thy hand !" 
 
 He reaches out to me 
 The gem-like stone again, and tenderly 
 Speaks on " That stone a talisman shall be, 
 
 " Which thou shalt wear when thou to Earth returnest. 
 So long as thou in inmost being yearnest, 
 So long as thou in aspiration burnest 
 
 " To be thyself an Angel, sweet and wise, 
 That talisman shall keep thee from surprise, 
 And every morn thou'lt see, with spirit-eyes, 
 
 " Our planet ; and thy inmost heart shall quiver
 
 STARRY HEAVEN. 19/ 
 
 With solemn harmony, and like a river 
 Immortal Wisdom through thee flow forever. 
 
 " And when thou feelest it within thy palm, 
 Upon thy spirit shall descend a calm, 
 Deep influence, thy weary soul to balm 
 
 In precious odors." 
 
 Here the Angel smiles 
 Pauses and I arise above the Isles ; 
 And the fair planet for two thousand miles 
 
 In panoramic loveliness outspread 
 Beneath me lies. All glorious overhead 
 Its spiritual Paradise appears. 
 
 Be still, my foolish heart, away thy fears, 
 
 Thy dreading to return 
 
 Into the outer form. 
 Remember thou hast unto heaven arisen, 
 
 And shalt arise again. 
 Thou bearest in thy hand a precious gem. 
 
 Farewell ! farewell ! 
 Blest homes, where Beings dwell 
 Without mistrust, or selfishness, or hate ! 
 I to my form return, and to its fate.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 AT the sitting on the morning of the thirteenth day, the in- 
 telligence which inspired the Poem signified its willingness to 
 answer any questions which S. B. Brittan might be pleased to 
 propound, respecting its origin and the manner of its production. 
 Accordingly, on Friday morning, 9th inst. the day after the 
 Poem was finished we submitted a number of interrogatories, 
 which were promptly and appropriately answered. The rec- 
 ord of this interview will most clearly exhibit the singular 
 claims of this remarkable Poem, and for this reason, especially, 
 we append it to this volume. 
 
 Mr. Harris being entranced at the residence of Charles 
 Partridge, and in his presence, at No. 26 West Fifteenth Street, 
 on the morning of Dec. 9th, 1853, an interview, of which the 
 following is a faithful record, occurred between S. B. Brittau 
 and the intelligence which communicated the Poem entitled 
 " An Epic of the Starry Heaven." 
 
 QITESTION 1. Has the Spirit of Mr. Harris been separated from the body at any 
 time during the delivery of the Poem? If the answer be iu the affirmative, when? 
 now often ? and how long ? 
 
 ANSWER. As to internals, yes: though he will be the last
 
 200 APPENDIX. 
 
 person to believe it. His inmost was actually attracted from 
 the physical structure. He was absent, commencing at that 
 period at which he is represented as rising to the seventh sphere 
 of this planet, in the first part of the Poem. 
 
 Arrangements were made for the projection of the poems 
 into externals in the month of March, 1850. We desire, from 
 the interior, to give a record of an occurrence which transpired 
 in this city at that time. He was then residing in Second 
 Street. The house was visited by certain Spirits, some of 
 whom were members of the society of a poet's heaven (Spivits 
 in whom the lyrical element largely predominates dwell to- 
 gether in lyrical societies). A certain Spirit, who resides in 
 the intuitive region of the heaven of Spirits, and toward the 
 sun, placed him in a trance condition, between the hours of ten 
 and eleven in the evening, at a time when he was still in the 
 state which you call wakefulness. and appeared standing before 
 him, holding in his hand a sealed book, having seven seals. 
 Having succeeded in producing the trance state, he was per- 
 mitted to view several pages of this work, though he retained 
 a consciousness of one only. This page appeared to him an 
 illuminated landscape, divided into three planes. It was, 
 however, in reality a cosmical diagram. He will himself, in 
 his external state, give a description of it as it appeared to him 
 at that time.* 
 
 The Spirit in question then proceeded to show him a series 
 of books, which, however, in his external condition, he recol- 
 lected simply as minute hieroglyphical figures, and the Spirit, 
 addressing himself to the internal mind of the medium, pointed 
 to the first of these hieroglyphs that being the present Poem 
 and said to him, "Do you comprehend that with all your at- 
 tainments you have not advanced to the wisdom contained in 
 this ?" This question was asked of him as a test for the pur- 
 
 * Bee Appendix B.
 
 APPENDIX. 201 
 
 pose of affording a demonstration of his interior capacity to 
 receive the truth, as knowledge begins in humility. He an- 
 swered in a childlike manner, after hesitating for a fraction of 
 a moment. " Yes, I do ;" and the Spirit said to him, " Be faith- 
 ful and obedient, and in four years this volume shall be open 
 to you." He was immediately attracted out into his ordinary 
 state, and imagined that this vision was a dream, and that he 
 was still dreaming. In order to rivet the impression on his 
 mind, the Spirit caused him to resort to a variety of methods to 
 convince himself that he was still in a waking state until he 
 became satisfied. He was then instantly entranced a second 
 and third time. a"nd the vision and the promise, together with 
 the inquiry, were twice repeated, and after each vision he was 
 again restored to the external condition. This was done for 
 the purpose of impressing his mind in the most absolute 
 manner with the reality of the visitation. The present work 
 is given as an introduction to the fulfillment of the promise 
 given at that time, and will be succeeded by others. 
 
 Q. 2. Whpn the Spirit left the form, was it necessary for some Spirit from the 
 superior spheres to enter the body, or by some other mode to establish intimate 
 relations with the organism, in order to keep up the vital action? 
 
 A. Positive Life inflowed, infusing an active Nature-prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 Q. 3. Please explain the mode whereby the medium's Spirit was released, and 
 the proeess by which the communicating intelligence possesses and controls his 
 bodily organs. 
 
 A. A Spirit is released by rising above the body. The 
 powers of the Spirit-world, which are brought to bear on the 
 Spirit in the form, are so far superior to all corporeal restraints 
 and earthly attractions as to withdraw the Spirit; but when 
 those Spiritual forces are diverted or withheld, the entranced 
 one yields to sublunary attractions, and returns again to the 
 form. 
 
 The inspiring Spirit stands in the Sun-sphere. While the 
 
 9*
 
 202 APPENDIX. 
 
 Spirit of the medium is in the body, he is to that body as the 
 sun to its planetary organization; but when he leaves his body 
 and rises to the Sun-sphere himself, the society of Spirits into 
 whose midst he rises become for the time being the sun of his 
 body, and their will-forces flow down into its ultimates, and 
 the organs are passive to their control ; they can not change 
 the organic peculiarities, but must operate through the medium 
 according to existing organic conditions. 
 
 Q. 4. Did Mr. Harris, in Spirit, actually visit the planets, and wore the localities 
 and scenes described in the Poem disclosed to his interior vision as objective 
 realities? 
 
 A. Spirits who stand in the Sun-sphere perceive by means 
 of an odic emanation from the sun. They become negative at 
 times to other suns, and leaving odylic forms, traverse with 
 inconceivable rapidity the region to which they may be at- 
 tracted, entering into any given solar system. For the moment 
 they are drawn into rapport with the intellect-spheres of the 
 inhabited planets; they are attracted, according to a divine 
 *w, to those terrestrial habitations from which they may 
 derive increased vigor. By this means their interiors undergo 
 a continuous expansion, and they become instructed. Planets 
 are sub-centers of attraction, and suns are centers. 
 
 Q. 5. Did the general influence of the sphere to which the medium was trmis- 
 poned awaken germs of images already latent in ihe mind ? 
 
 A. The ideas descended into the mind from the individual 
 localities to which he was intromitted, attracted to themselves 
 a verbal embodiment in the seminal chambers of the brain, 
 and were thence projected into speech. 
 
 Q. 6. Mr. Harris speaks of having been conscious of a mysterious musical action 
 wiihin him for some time before the delivery of the Poem and during its produc- 
 tion. Will the Spirits please explain the modus operand* whereby these internal 
 phenomena were produced? 
 
 A. All stages of mental development, like the growth of 
 plants, crystals, physical organizations, solar systems, spheres,
 
 APPENDIX. 203 
 
 and the universe itself, save when dissonances intervene, are 
 attended with melody. Every flower speaks through its pores : 
 all things that live utter speech according to their kind. The 
 internals of this medium have been unfolded through a stream 
 of influx centered in the solar plexus, and the internals through 
 all the spiritual nerves have been constantly vibrated, causing 
 sentient harmony. Laterly, a beloved Spirit, who on earth 
 was known as a composer of music, has fulfilled an important 
 function in connection with his development. This Spirit and 
 his friends have frequently executed airs and symphonies, 
 mainly of an instrumental character, attended, however, with 
 vocalization, and he hdff sensed this music, though seldom, 
 with much distinctness. He is now to pass more fully into 
 this region of instrumental harmony. 
 
 Q. 7. What was the name of the musical composer referred to in the answer to 
 the preceding question? 
 
 A. It was . 
 
 [The name was communicated, but we are not permitted tr 
 announce it publicly.] 
 
 Q. S. What name did the Spirits bear while on earth, which Mr. Harris saw 
 during his first sitting? 
 
 A. He saw Dante and Petrarch. Companies of Spirits have 
 also gathered to witness the delivery of the Poem, as an inter- 
 esting objective phenomenon. 
 
 Q. 9. Will the Spirits impart to us a more definite idea respecting the nature 
 of the talisman given to Mr. Harris on his final return to the external sphere? 
 
 A. It was what we call a sun-stone. It is occult. There is, 
 however, a constant magnetic relation and rapport established 
 between his nervous organization and the plane of Mercury in 
 the sun-sphere, by means of it. These terms will be unintel- 
 ligible to him in the external, and to most others. 
 
 Q. 10. "Will the Spirits append any explanatory notes to this Poem? 
 
 A. No : but the parties present may supply them, if any aro 
 deemed to be necessary.
 
 204 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the month of March. 1850, about ten o'clock in the even- 
 ing, the circumstance which I am about to narrate occurred, 
 and though it may affect the reader with incredulity, I am 
 nevertheless impressed to commit it to the world. 
 
 During the day I had been in a singularly calm and har- 
 monious frame of mind, a state equally removed from exhilara- 
 tion and depression, and characterized by profound peace. In 
 this state I retired to my sleeping chamber at an early hour, 
 not in a somnolent but rather in a quiet and meditative condition. 
 Having entered my room, I became first of all conscious of a 
 soft white luster, different at once from the ordinary "as-light 
 and from the solar ray, and this light appeared equally diffused 
 throughout the room into which I had entered and the room 
 which I had left. In a moment I was sensible of a mild and 
 tranquil influence, which operated powerfully both upon the 
 cerebral and cardiacal systems, and caused me to feel as if my 
 organism were pervaded by the most exquisite harmony. 
 
 I was now impressed to look up. and saw, without any 
 astonishment or without losing in any degree this delightful 
 calmness, a tall and majestic Spirit, apparently in the perfection 
 of manhood. His brow was high and massive, his eyes were 
 of a dark-blue color, his hands delicate and with taper fingers, 
 his lips wearing an expression of childlike sweetness, combined 
 with the strength and vigor of a most positive mind. His person 
 was attired in a garment shaped like the Roman toga. Its color 
 was white, as if woven from a fleece of a silver hue. Upon his 
 brow was a fillet composed of flowers of the lily, and the leaves 
 of the olive and the vine, the flowers gold, and the leaves dark, 
 glossy green. 
 
 This Spirit stood before me holding in his right hand a small
 
 APPENDIX. 205 
 
 book, which appeared to be bound in the ancient Gothic style, 
 and clasped with a seven-fold seal. Without saying a word he 
 proceeded to open the book, which I at once perceived from its 
 peculiar appearance to be a depository of divine truth and 
 wisdom: for the leaves were white as snow, and the pages 
 appeared to expand as my vision rested on them, till each ap- 
 peared of a folio size. 
 
 I saw the Spirit turn over these leaves with considerable 
 rapidity, as if he were Jooking for a particular page, and as he 
 turned them I saw that each was illuminated, somewhat after 
 the manner of an ancient missal, and that exquisite designs 
 tinted with prismatic colors glittered from every one. I was 
 unable, however, from the rapidity with which they were 
 turned, to distinguish more than a general and exquisite har- 
 mony of tone and outline, without being able to perceive their 
 specific character. 
 
 At last the Angel, for so I am impressed to style him, ap- 
 peared to have turned to the page which he had in view, and 
 the book was widely opened, and the leaf turned directly to 
 my sight. I know not how to describe it. I can say much, 
 but still many of the objects which I perceived in it will be left 
 undescribed. 
 
 Upon a leaf which expanded and deepened as I gazed. I saw 
 a .paradisiacal city, and the appearance of a world vast and 
 glorious, and exhibiting every variety of scenery, from the most 
 quiet and ethereal to the most grand. The foreground was 
 occupied by groups of human figures clad in robes of purple, 
 violet, and white, but the prevailing hue was purple, shaded 
 with gold. The foliage, the flowers, the tall and stately trees, 
 the gigantic vines that rose above their columns, were appar- 
 ently tropical in their nature, and characterized by extreme 
 luxuriance of leaf and blossom, by massive strength, and by 
 the most splendid yet harmonized coloring. 
 
 The sky which seemed to bend over the scene was of a
 
 206 APPENDIX. 
 
 delicate wine color, and above it an intense golden light shone 
 from a point in the zenith, and yet above it. This effulgence 
 seemed living, and the splendid forms of animated nature below 
 seemed to be merely its receptacles. I observed that all this 
 light appeared to emanate from a sun-like form which revolved 
 with inconceivable rapidity, and in that sun appeared an hiero- 
 glyph which denoted the presence of the Lord. Upon the 
 upper surfaces of the clouds or nebula which floated in the 
 firmament above the landscape, and below this Spiritual Sun. 
 appeared silver globes, each of which seemed ascending to- 
 ward the sun itself, and these globes appeared each to be 
 intelligent. 
 
 Below this magnificent vision, at the lower portion of the 
 page, appeared two lines of hieroglyphs, in all numbering per- 
 haps two hundred. Each of these appeared formed of a wind- 
 ing series of involved lines, and each exhibited the prismatic 
 colors, though in various degrees of brilliancy. On inspecting 
 them more minutely. I perceived that these were all emanations 
 of the Spiritual Sun, and that minute vortices of rays were in- 
 volved in each, so that each was an ultimate expression of that 
 Original and Creative Brightness. I saw, however, that these 
 rays were of the same nature as the substance of the various 
 human and natural objects of the vast landscape and city ex- 
 tended through the center of the page. 
 
 While Iwas contemplating the picture, the Angel spoke in 
 a voice full of expression, and said : " Do you perceive that all 
 the knowledge which hitherto you have attained to, is far 
 exceeded by the wisdom contained in the first and most minute 
 of those hieroglyphs?" The effect of his address was to pro- 
 duce a more interior illumination of intellect, and I perceived, 
 and at once answered in the affirmative. 
 
 At this the Angel smiled in a serious way, and said, with 
 increased and even with paternal gentleness. " Be faithful and 
 obedient, and in four years this volume all shall be opened to
 
 APPENDIX. 207 
 
 you." Saying this he closed the book, and immediately became 
 invisible. 
 
 I found myself at once in a state of external consciousness, 
 fully roused, yet with my mind filled with the vision, and could 
 not be persuaded but that I must have been dreaming. I re- 
 sorted at once to several modes of convincing myself that I was 
 in a waking state, and that I was not spell-bound. In a 
 moment I felt confident that I was in my usual condition, and 
 no sooner was I satisfied on this point than again the Angel 
 stood before me and talked with me, repeating the identical 
 vision, and closing with the same interrogation and promise. I 
 again resorted to all possible experiments to prove to myself 
 that this was an actual waking experience, and when I had 
 done this the Angel appeared a third time and said, " Are you 
 satisfied?" I replied that I was fully; at this he again opened 
 the volume, turned to the same page, asked me the same 
 question, made me the same promise, and disappeared.
 
 208 APPENDIX. 
 
 The " EPIC OF THE STARRY HEAVEN" was chiefly dictated 
 at the residence of Mr. Charles Partridge, No. 26 West, Fifteenth 
 Street. As it may be of interest to the reader to have all the 
 facts connected with its production, the following statement, 
 embodying the places at which the several sittings occurred, 
 the dates, names of the witnesses etc., is subjoined. 
 
 Mr. Partridge, by particular request, acted as amanuensis 
 during the delivery of the entire Poem, except the portion given 
 at Brooklyn, on occasion of the first sitting, when Mr. Leavitt 
 served in that capacity. 
 
 FIRST SITTING. Thomas L. Harris was at the residence of 
 Dr. Isaac Harrington, in Brooklyn, L. I., on Thursday afternoon, 
 Nov. 24th, 1853, when he was unexpectedly entranced by the 
 agency of spirits, as was believed, and in the presence of Mrs. 
 Harrington and Mr. Leavitt commenced the delivery of the 
 Poem entitled as above. 
 
 SECOND SITTING. Friday evening. Nov. 25th, the delivery 
 of the Poem was continued at the residence of Charles Partridge, 
 in presence of himself and other members of his family. 
 
 THIRD SITTING. Saturday evening, Nov. 26th, occurred at 
 the same place, Mr. Partridge alone being present. 
 
 FOURTH SITTING. Monday evening, Nov. 28th. present Mr. 
 and Mrs. Partridge. 
 
 FIFTH SITTING. Tuesday, Nov. 29th, present Charles 
 Partridge. 
 
 SIXTH SITTING. Wednesday morning. Nov. 30th, the Preface 
 was given. 
 
 SEVENTH SITTING. Wednesday evening, Nov. 30th, the
 
 APPENDIX. 209 
 
 interview occurred at the house of C. P.; present, Dr. J. R. 
 Orton, S. B. Brittan, Mr. and Mrs. Partridge, and their son. 
 
 EIGHTH SITTING. Thursday morning, Dec. 1st, Mr. Harris 
 continued the delivery of the Poem at the same place, in the 
 presence of C. P. 
 
 NINTH SITTING. On the evening of the same day the inter- 
 view occurred as above. 
 
 TENTH SITTING. Friday morning, Dec. 2d, the delivery of 
 the Poem was continued at 56 St. Mark's Place, Mrs. Merwin, 
 her mother, and C. P. being present. 
 
 ELEVENTH SITTING. Friday evening the seance occurred at 
 26 West Fifteenth Street; present, Dr. Orton, Dr. Frisbee, H. 
 Hebbard, Mr. and Mrs. Merwin, Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Stuart, 
 and John Stuart. 
 
 TWELFTH SITTING. Saturday morning, Dec. 3d, C. P. and 
 Isaac C. Pray were present. 
 
 THIRTEENTH SITTING. Continued at the usual place, in the 
 presence of C. P. and L. Leavitt. 
 
 FOURTEENTH SITTING. Sunday morning, Dec. 4th, no wit- 
 nesses present except C. P. 
 
 FIFTEENTH SITTING. Occurred on the evening of the same 
 day at the usual place; present C. P. and A. S. Gibbs. 
 
 SIXTEENTH SITTING. Monday morning, Dec. 5th, there was 
 no one present but C. P. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH SITTING. Monday evening, Mr. Harris con- 
 tinued the delivery of his grand Epic at the house of C. P., on 
 which occasion Dr. R. T. Hallock and Rev. Mr. Calthorpe were 
 present. 
 
 EIGHTEENTH SITTING. Tuesday morning, Dec. 6th, present 
 C. P. 
 
 NINETEENTH SITTING. Tuesday evening (same day), no 
 additional witnesses present. 
 
 TWENTIETH SITTING. Wednesday morning, Dec. 7th, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Charles Partridge and S. B. Brittan were present.
 
 210 APPENDIX. 
 
 TWENTY-FIRST SITTING. On the evening of the same day 
 the Poem was continued in presence of the following-named 
 persons : Mr. and Mrs. Merwin, S. B. Brittan, Dr. R. T. Hal- 
 lock, William Fishbough, Prof. Mapes, Dr. L. T. Warner, C. 
 D. Stuart, Dr. J. F. Gray, D. McMahon, jr., Isaac C. Pray, 
 Michael Burke, and Henry Stebbins. 
 
 TWENTY-SECOND SITTING. Thursday morning, Dec. 8th, 
 the Poem was concluded at the house of Charles Partridge, no 
 other witnesses being present on the occasion. 
 
 It was at the close of the session on Wednesday morning, 
 Dec. 7th, that S. B. Brittan was requested to write the general 
 Introduction, which, together with Appendix A and C, was 
 accordingly furnished by the party named. 
 
 NOTE. It was originally stated in the SPIRITUAL TELEGRAPH that the time em- 
 ployed in delivering the " Epic of the Starry Heaven" was thirty hours and thirty 
 minutes; but on a careful examination of the original manuscripts, it was found 
 that this statement was erroneous, and that the actual time was but twenty-aim 
 /tours and sixteen minutes, as stated in the Introduction. B. B. E.
 
 K 3kttfnn'0 Ijriritunl lllirnnj. 
 
 OUR list of BOOKS embraces all the principal works devoted to SPIRIT- 
 HALISM, whether published by ourselves or others, and will comprehend all 
 works of value that may be issued hereafter. The reader's attention is 
 particularly invited to those named below, all of wliich may be found at the 
 Office of THE SHEKINAH and SPIRITUAL TELEGRAPH. The reader will per- 
 ceive that the price of each book in the list, and the amount of postage, if 
 forwarded by mail, are annexed. 
 
 The Shekinah, Vol. L 
 
 By S. U. Brittan, Kditor, and other writers, is devotnd chiefly to an Inquiry into the 
 Spiritual Nature and Relations of MAN. It treats especially of the Philosophy 
 of Vital, Mental, and Spiritual Phenomena, and contains interesting Facts and 
 profound Expositions of the Psychical Conditions and Manifestations now attract- 
 ing attention in Europe and America. This volume contains, in part, the Editor's 
 Philosophy of the Soul ; the Interesting Visons of Hon. J. W. Edmonds ; Lives 
 and Portraits of Seere and Eminent Spiritualists; Foe-similes of Mystical Writ- 
 ings, in Foreign and Dead Languages, through E. P. Fowler, etc. Published by 
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 By A. J. Davis, the Clairvoyant. Price, Si 00; postage, 48 cents. 
 
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 The Physician. By A. J. Davis. Price, 61 25 ; postage, 20 cents. 
 
 The Great Harinonia, Vol. II., 
 
 The Teacher. By A. J. Davis Price, $1 00 ; postage, 19 conU. 
 
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 The .Seer. By A. J. Davis. Price, $1 00; postage, 19 centt. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 
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 RECDYRL AY 072003 
 
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