As he last appeared to me, he was full of majesty and strength, self-poised and calm, and it would seem by the expression of his countenance, radiant with victory, that the reward promised to “him that overcometh,” had been made his sure possession. Around his brow, as a spiritual emblem, was an olive-wreath, whose leaves glowed like fire. He stood upon the side of a mountain, which was white and glittering like crystal, and the full tide of inspiration to which he gave utterance could not be comprehended in human speech. That last “Farewell,” as it found expression through my weak lips, was but the faintest possible echo of that most musical and majestic lyric which thrilled the harp-strings of my being. In order to be fully realized and understood, the soul must be transported to that sphere of spiritual _perceptions_, where there is no _audible_ “speech nor language,” and where the “voice is not _heard_.” Obedient to the call of the Angels, he has “gone up higher” in the ways of Eternal Progress; and though, because of this change, he may no longer manifest himself as he _was_, yet doubtless as he _is_, he will yet be felt as a Presence and a Power in the “Heaven” of many a human heart. Upon earth he was a meteor light, flashing with a startling brilliancy across the intellectual firmament; but now he is a star of ever-increasing magnitude, which has at length gravitated to its own place among the celestial spheres. In saying thus much, I cannot so play the coward to my spiritual convictions as to offer the slightest apology for any ideas I may have advanced contrary to popular prejudices or time-honored opinions. O, thoughtful reader! if I have offended thee, say simply that these are _my_ convictions and not _yours_, and do not fear for the result; for in whatsoever I purpose or perform, I “can do nothing against the Truth--only for it.” I do not indulge in the conceit that this little work has any important mission to perform, or that it will cause any commotion in the literary world. But I have felt, as one by one these poems have been wrought out--by general or special inspiration--from my “Inner Life,” that in this matter I had a work, simple though it might be, to do, and my soul was sorely “straitened till it was accomplished.”