TO M. L. S

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning-
Of all to whom thine absence is the night--
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun-of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope-for life-ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth-in Virtue-in Humanity-
Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes—
Of all who owe thee most-whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship-oh, remember
The truest-the most fervently devoted,

And think that these weak lines are written by him—
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel's.

EUREKA: A PROSE POEM.

EUREKA:

AN ESSAY ON

THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.

[To the few who love me and whom I love-to those who feel rather than to those who think-to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realitiesI offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an ArtProduct alone:-let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem.

What I here propound is true :—therefore it cannot die :—or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will "rise again to the Life Everlasting." Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.]

Ir is with humility really unassumed-it is with a sentiment even of awe—that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn the most comprehensive-the most difficult—the most august.

What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimitysufficiently sublime in their simplicity—for the mere enunciation of my theme?

I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical-of the Material and Spiritual Universe :-of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny. I shall be so rash, moreover, as to challenge the conclusions, and thus, in effect, to question the sagacity, of many of the greatest and most justly reverenced of men.

In the beginning, let me as distinctly as possible announcenot the theorem which I hope to demonstrate-for, whatever the