CANTO ONE
1—Title: **As From a Dream.** The subject of this Canto is the author's spiritual awakening.
2—20. **Baal and Astoreth** (also rendered Ashtoreth). Pagan deities, frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. They were worshiped by the idolatrous Israelites. The Prophet Elijah's controversy with the priests of Baal is one of the most dramatic episodes in sacred history. (I Kings 18:19-40). Baal was the sun god, chief male divinity of the Phoenicians; Ashtoreth, representing the moon, a goddess of the Philistines—the same as Astarte of the Zidonians. The corresponding deities among the Greeks and Romans were Zeus or Jupiter and Aphrodite or Venus.
3—60. **Truth's Triple Key.** The Spirit of Truth, revealing past, present and future.
4—86. **Ambrosial Gardens.** The Gardens of the Gods—Heaven.
5—92. **Paradise.** The Spirit World, a place of rest for the righteous, awaiting resurrection and exaltation to glorious spheres beyond. (Alma, 40:11-14; "Joseph Smith's Teachings," pp. 184, 185; Key to Theology, 14.)
6—101. **Love's Eyes.** Love is usually represented as a blind boy, Cupid, shooting his arrows aimlessly. Love, when spiritually enlightened, is no longer blind, but has a definite purpose in view.
7—111. **Lethean Ground.** Lethe, in classic mythology, signifies oblivion. It was the name of a river in Hades, of which the dead drank and forgot all.
8—117. **O Thou, Of Beauty!** The stanza beginning with these words is an apostrophe to Woman.
9—130. **Apple of Ashes.** On the shores of the Dead Sea there grows, it is said, a fruit resembling the apple, beautiful and inviting to the eye, but turning to ashes at the touch.
10—167. **Equally May Win.** The vanquished, as well as the victorious, may gain, through experience, development.
11—174. **What Soul Can Grow?** Pride, greed, hate, and all other perverted passions, are as weeds and thorns in the garden of the heart. It is fair to presume that the Saviour, when he exhorted his disciples to forgive and love their enemies, had in view the welfare of the disciples themselves. It was more for their sake than for the sake of their enemies, that He gave the exhortation.
12—185. **The Spirit of the Infinite.** The Holy Spirit, assumed throughout the poem to be acting through "Elias," the Genius of Progress, who also has his agents or instruments.
13—219. **Time's Hills and Vales.** A metaphor suggested by the Book of Abraham (3:18, 19).
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