SHELLEY.

TO SHELLEY.

UPON thy subtile nature was a bloom,
Unearthly in its tender, gleamful glow,

As thou hadst strayed from some sane star where

blow

But halcyon airs, and here, blinded by gloom,
Didst stumble, for the lack of light and room,

And strike and wound with purposed good; and

So,

Through Highest pity, thou hadst leave to go

Early to where for each earth-life its doom
Awaits it, as the fruit the seed, and where
Thy multitudinous imaginings,

So truthful pure, on Heaven's fulgent stair
Fit issue find, and mid the radiant rings
Of mounting Angels thy great spirit's glare
Adds to the brightness of the brightest things.

SHELLEY.

I.

MAN might be symbolized by the attitude of Mercury a-tiptoe on the earth, his figure tending, and his eyes and upper limbs turned, skyward, with wings on his heels, to waft him toward the Heaven whence he came. Man on earth is an aspiring animal, the only animal that aspires, the only animal that can behold the constellations, and, therefore, more than an animal,

"A budded angel graft on clay."

He is both spirit and matter, ethereal and gross, celestial and earthly. The conflict of these within him, the upward swing of spirit, the downward pull of sense,—while it unfolds and displays his inborn powers, developing and disciplining his nature, schools him for progression and immortality.

The equipment of man being thus compounded of the immeasurable elements of spirit