Here dwelt the Samian sage; to him belongs The brightest witness of recording fame. He sought Crotona's pure, salubrious air, And through great Greece his gentle wisdom taught. His mental eye first launched into the deeps Of boundless ether; where unnumbered orbs, Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky Unerring roll, and wind their steady way. There he the full consenting choir beheld; There first discerned the secret band of love, The kind attraction, that to central suns Binds circling earths, and world with world unites. Instructed thence, he great ideas formed Of the whole-moving, all-informing God, The Sun of Beings! beaming unconfined-- Light, life, and love, and ever active power: Whom naught can image, and who best approves The silent worship of the moral heart, That joys in bounteous Heaven and spreads the joy. Pythagoras also taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which he probably derived from the Egyptians; and he professed to preserve a distinct remembrance of several states of existence through which his soul had passed. It is related of him that on one occasion, seeing a dog beaten, he interceded in its behalf, saying, "It is the soul of a friend of mine, whom I recognize by its voice." It would seem as if the poet COLERIDGE had at times been dimly conscious of the reality of this Pythagorean doctrine, for he says: Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll Which makes the present (while the flash doth last) Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wore. One of our favorite American poets; LOWELL, indulges in a like fancy in the following lines from that dream, like, exquisite fantasy, "In the Twilight," found in the Biglow Papers: Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from Dream-land sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went, Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere-- Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music once heard by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it-- A something so shy, it would shame it To make it a show-- A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago! And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs in my brain-- Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again-- Could I but speak and show it, This pleasure, more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, The world should not lack a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad Long ago.