With loving kindness will he wait,
Till all the prodigals o’ fate
Return unto their fair estate,
And blessings mony;
Nor will he shut the gowden gate
Of Heaven on ony.
RESURREXI.
“A Remarkable Poem.—The following striking poem was recited by Miss Lizzie Doten, a Spiritual trance-speaker, at the close of a recent lecture in Boston. She professed to give it impromptu, as far as she was concerned, and to speak under the direct influence of Edgar A. Poe. Whatever may be the truth about its production, the poem is, in several respects, a remarkable one. Miss Doten is, apparently, incapable of originating such a poem. If it was written for her by some one else, and merely committed to memory and recited by her, the poem is, nevertheless, wonderful as a reproduction of the singular music and alliteration of Poe’s style, and as manifesting the same intensity of feeling. Whoever wrote the poem must have been exceedingly familiar with Poe, and deeply in sympathy with his spirit. But if Miss Doten is honest, and the poem originated as she said it did, it is unquestionably the most astonishing thing that Spiritualism has produced. It does not follow, necessarily, in that case, that Poe himself made the poem,—although we are asked to believe a great many spiritual things on less cogent evidence,—but it is, in any view of it that may be taken, a very singular and mysterious production. There is, in the second verse, an allusion to a previous poem that purported to come from the spirit of Poe, which was published several years since, and attracted much attention, but the following poem is of a higher order, and much more like Poe than the other.”—Springfield Republican.
From the throne of Life Eternal,
From the home of love supernal,
Where the angel feet make music over all the starry floor—
Mortals, I have come to meet you,
Come with words of peace to greet you,
And to tell you of the glory that is mine forevermore.
Once before I found a mortal
Waiting at the heavenly portal—
Waiting but to catch some echo from that ever-opening door;
Then I seized his quickened being,
And through all his inward seeing,
Caused my burning inspiration in a fiery flood to pour!
Now I come more meekly human,
And the wreak lips of a woman
Touch with fire from off the altar, not with burnings as of yore;
But in holy love descending,
With her chastened being blending,
I would fill your souls with music from the bright celestial shore.
As one heart yearns for another,
As a child turns to its mother,
From the golden gates of glory turn I to the earth once more,
Where I drained the cup of sadness,
Where my soul was stung to madness,
And life’s bitter, burning billows swept my burdened being o’er.
Here the harpies and the ravens,—
Human vampyres, sordid cravens,—
Preyed upon my soul and substance till I writhed in anguish sore;
Life and I then seemed mismated,
For I felt accursed and fated,
Like a restless, wrathful spirit, wandering on the Stygian shore.
Tortured by a nameless yearning,
Like a frost-fire, freezing, burning,
Did the purple, pulsing life-tide through its fevered channels pour,
Till the golden bowl—Life’s token—
Into shining shards was broken,
And my chained and chafing spirit leaped from out its prison door.
But while living, striving, dying,
Never did my soul cease crying,
“Ye who guide the Fates and Furies, give, O give me, I implore,
From the myriad hosts of nations,
From the countless constellations,
One pure spirit that can love me—one that I, too, can adore!”