But though spirits may thus live close to their earthly friends, without leaving their upper homes, yet it affords us sweet delight to return in spiritual presence to the homes we loved on earth, and, by mingling with dear ones in the mortal, partake of their joys, participate in their sorrows, bless them with our affection, and, by silent impression upon their minds, permeate their thoughts with our ideas, and ever seek to draw them upward and onward toward the beautiful and the good. _Such_ is the blessed mission of many loving and devoted spirits who are working for the soul elevation of friends on earth. POETRY OF THE SPIRIT SPHERES. In my frequent visits to this medium I have sometimes encountered one who, a poet when on earth, still delights to sing his melodies through the lips of mortals, and at such times I have felt my spirit bathed in a halo of light as I listened to his metrical utterances, or better still came _en rapport_ with his spirit, saw the gems of thought therein, and watched him weaving them into lines of richest grace and beauty. Oh, ye mortals, the poems you receive from minds on earth, whether given forth by the acknowledged poet, or through the organisms of mediums, are but the shadows of a glorious reality above; they are but as skeletons compared with the full and perfect forms, clothed with the majesty of perfected expression in the soul world; a mere outline, which conveys to you perhaps an idea of the beautiful whole, as it flashes forth from the realm of spirit. In poesy as in music, and indeed as in all the arts and sciences, you can never see its grand revealments, its possibilities and its powers, its radiance and its glory, until you drop from your shoulders the mantle of materiality, and stand forth all spirit, with an abiding desire within your souls to find the beautiful, the holy, and the pure. This poet soul,[3] of whom I speak, has at times requested me to give expression to some of my thoughts in the golden light of poesy, to drape them with the snowy robes of melodious song; but I shrink from the task, feeling that I cannot do justice to the noble rules of rhyme and rhythm. Footnote 3: John Critchley Prince. Spirits do not, as a rule, underrate their own powers; there is no false delicacy to be assumed; they understand something of the possibilities within, and eagerly and thankfully accept the opportunities afforded them to cultivate their powers, and to develop these possibilities of the soul. Therefore, though I do not at present feel to echo these sounds from the other shore through the channel of poetic expression, yet I do feel that some time I may so develop my inner powers as to sing in measured tones and cadences the song of my spirit, the melody of my soul.