"When I am lost in the deep body of the mist on a hill, The universe seems built with me as its pillar. Am I the god upon the face of the deep, nay-- The deepless deepness in the beginning?" And the following, possible of comprehension only to one who has glimpsed the eternal verity of man's spiritual reality, and the shadow-like quality of the external; could have been written only by one freed from the bonds of illusion: "The mystic silence of the moon, Gradually revived in me immortality; The sorrow that gently stirred Was melancholy-sweet; sorrow is higher Far than joy, the sweetest sorrow is supreme Amid all the passions. I had No sorrow of mortal heart: my sorrow Was one given before the human sorrows Were given me. Mortal speech died From me: my speech was one spoken before God bestowed on me human speech. There is nothing like the moon-night When I, parted from the voice of the city, Drink deep of Infinity with peace From another, a stranger sphere. There is nothing Like the moon-night when the rich, noble stars And maiden roses interchange their long looks of love. When I raise my face from the land of loss Unto the golden air, and calmly learn How perfect it is to grow still as a star. There is nothing like the moon-night When I walk upon the freshest dews, And amid the warmest breezes, With all the thought of God And all the bliss of man, as Adam Not yet driven from Eden, and to whom Eve was not yet born. What a bird Dreams in the moonlight is my dream: What a rose sings is my song." The true poet does not need individual experiences of either sorrow or of joy. His spirit is so attuned to the song of the universe; so sympathetic with the moans of earthly trials, that every vibration from the heart of the universe reaches him; stabs him with its sorrow, or irradiates his being with joy. Jesus is fitly portrayed to us as "The Man of Sorrows"; even while we recognize him as a self-conscious son of God--an immortal being fully aware of his escape from enchantment, and his heirship to Paradise. Cosmic consciousness bestows a bliss that is past all words to describe and it also quickens the sympathies and attunes the soul to the vibrations of the heart-cries of the struggling evolving ones who are still travailing in the pains of the new birth. We must be willing to endure the suffering _in order that we may realize_ the joy; not because joy is the reward for suffering, but because it is only by losing sight of the personal self that we become aware of that inner Self which is immortal and blissful; and when we become aware of the reality of that inner Self, we know that we are united with _the all_, and must feel with all.