1. Dedication.

ture story.

ARGUMENT.

II. The Poet's thirst after knowledge. v. His comfort in imagination. vII. The general estate and nature of man. Ix. His birth-primæval insensibility and helplessness. XII. NurMaternal affection-Filial gratitude. xx. Rosafresca—a XXXI. Apostrophe to Mothers. XXXVI. The perennial quality of the soul. XXXVIII. Its incarnation. XXXIX. Argument for its pre-existence. XLI. Pythagoras. XLV. A scheme of Metempsychosis. LV. Other assertors of the Soul's immortality. LVI. Materialists. Popular argument for the immortality of the Soul. LVIII. Philosophical argument from the vis inertiæ of matter. LIX. Certainty of matter's change by its union with Spirit. LXI. Infancy. LXIII. Origin of ideas. LXVII. MIND. Its nature and attributes. LXXI. Man's participation of it: In which he glories. The vanity of his glory. LXXIV. Earthly fame. LXXVII. Prospects of Infancy. LXXIX. Conclusion.

ELEUSINIA.

BOOK I.

IT is not I would flatter thee or thine,
Nor yet myself that I would fain display,
MIALMA, that I pen this opening line
And dedicate to thee my thoughtful lay :
It were poor chivalry, methinks, to shine

In letter'd lists, and point th' undangerous quill.
But 'tis that I would blend thy thoughts with mine;
If chords, which vibrate in my bosom still,

Shall wake perchance in thine a sympathetic thrill.

11.

To be! to be and live! and living hold
First rank in this terrene economy!
First-tho' of like dull dross and vulgar mould;

Yet stamp'd with character of finer die,
And dash'd with particle of purest gold!

To be and live! What is it? Could we look
On Truth not veil'd in doubt, and quite unfold
With mortal hand each page of Nature's book,
How lightly might we learn this weight of flesh to brook!

III.

There have been moments of my sojourn here,
When I would doff the fetters that enthral
My soul within the precincts of this sphere,
And mix me with the universal All:
Then has my spirit hurried me to peer
At things unseen, beyond imagining;
But I have shrunk within myself for fear,

And shudder'd at the desperate venturing:

Then turu'd to hug the hope which Faith alone can bring.

IV.

Still in our aspirations to be wise

We glean a something of th' eternal Truth;
The scatter'd pittance that ungarner'd lies,
Cast to our sense our yearning souls to soothe.
As some star cheers the sea-lost sailor's eyes,
By long laborious watching spied at last

Twixt opening clouds that all obscured the skies:
Enough—he tacks before the veering blast,
Ere daybreak nears the land, and laughs at dangers past.

V.

What, if in fantasy we wander far
Beyond our reason's little boundary?

"Tis a sweet wandering: and who would mar
One joy that brightens sad reality;
All empty tho' it be as meteor-star
Flashing athwart the moonless firmament?

Happier the child that runs to pluck a bar

From the void rainbow, than who mopes content

In ignorance, or stares in idle wonderment!