Could there be anything more complete than this whole picture, or anything more startling yet true in conception than the image in the last line, which we have italicized? One feels himself, as it were, on the very verge of the abyss, and the image of God, in which he was created, suddenly and silently falling from him. But a more beautiful and daring conception is that in the poem “From House to Home.” Treading on earth, the poet mounts to heaven, but by the thorny path that alone leads to it. Her days seemed perfect here below, and all happiness hers. Her house is fair and all its surroundings beautiful. She tells us that “Ofttimes one like an angel walked with me. With spirit-discerning eyes like flames of fire, But deep as the unfathomed, endless sea, Fulfilling my desire.” The spirit leaves her after a time, calling her home from banishment into “the distant land.” All the beauty of her life goes with him, and hope dies out of her heart, until something whispered that they should meet again in a distant land. “I saw a vision of a woman, where Night and new morning strive for domination; Incomparably pale, and almost fair, And sad beyond expression. * * * * * “I stood upon the outer barren ground, She stood on inner ground that budded flowers; While circling in their never-slackening round Danced by the mystic hours. “But every flower was lifted on a thorn, And every thorn shot upright from its sands To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn With cruel clapping hands. “She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength Was strung up until daybreak of delight; She measured measureless sorrow toward its length, And breadth, and depth, and height. “Then marked I how a chain sustained her form, A chain of living links not made nor riven: It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm, And anchored fast in heaven. “One cried: ‘How long? Yet founded on the Rock She shall do battle, suffer, and attain.’ One answered: ‘Faith quakes in the tempest shock: Strengthen her soul again.’ “I saw a cup sent down and come to her Brimful of loathing and of bitterness: She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir The depth, not make it less. “But as she drank I spied a hand distil New wine and virgin honey; making it First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until She tasted only sweet. “Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy――fresh and young; Drinking she sang: ‘My soul shall nothing want’; And drank anew: while soft a song was sung, A mystical low chant. “One cried: ‘The wounds are faithful of a friend: The wilderness shall blossom as a rose.’ One answered: ‘Rend the veil, declare the end, Strengthen her ere she goes.’”