|y CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY The original of tiiis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022014108 With CamplimEnts ni tliB ilutliDr, Send nnticB if any in carB nf tliB PiiblisliBrs, VLADIMIR; A POEM OF THE SNOW, MALCZE^^SKL 63 ^jl^c^U 4. I^^^ J New York : HOWARD LOCKWOOD, PUBLISHER, 126 AND 128 DuANE Street. 18S5. ^CORNELL UNIVERSiTYi LIBRARY ^^ Copyright, 1885, by Hyland C. Kirk, all rights reserved. liOckwood Press, 126 and 128 Duane Street, New York. CONTENTS. Canto I,— For the Hopeful, Canto II.— Life and Patriotism, Canto in.— What is Love? Canto IV.— A Penitent, Canto V,— A Criminal, Canto VI.— A Revelation, . Addenda, ILLUSTRATIONS. FACE. 7 . 12 21 25 33 38 46 "Catacombed Kief." "Wonderful goddess fair, crowned with auroral hair." "Until the morning and the birds began to peep." " Party -hued as butterflies, six summers flitted tandem by." " For love's self had built an altar." " In a vision fair as heaven." " Back he sprang and darted." "Voices clear, yet loud as thunder, on my startled senses rolled." To THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN PROGRESS, AND WORK TO THAT END, THIS POEM IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. VLADIMIR: A POEM OF THE SNOW. MALCXEWSKI.* CANTO I. FOR THE HOPEFUL. Thinkest thou the ghastly skeletons in catacombed Kief, Shriveled ancients sleeping under Petcherskoi's monastic nef. Clothed with flesh again, at midnight when resound the Abbey- bells, St. Paul's festival announcing — thinkest thou from musty cells They come forth to sit at table in the old Ukranian garb. Naked-limbed, with bear-skin garments, and with fierce, unshaven barb ? If you do believe such prattle which the Polish peasants tell ; * It is not pretended that Malczewski, the author of the Polish epic, " Maria or Marja," actually wrote this, though the main incident as a fact may have occurred within his knowledge, and before he was banished to Siberia. Let no one, for anything that may be found herein, seek to injure his memory or his relatives in the Ukraine. 8 VLADIMIR. If you laud tyrannic torture, by whose arts Konarski fell ; If you wear protecting opals, or a scarlet rag to charm Winds that blow from adverse quarters and to ward off shafts of harm — Do not read what I, relating to bold-hearted men and true, Tell you plainly is not meant for weakly cowards such as you. Such as you, who once belied me — such as you, who do not know That the truth may be more dreadful than the hell you fear below ; Nay, more startling and mysterious than if all your foolish dreams Were reality embodied, and death were not what it seems. Pardon, if I seem discourteous, but an ol(} man's speech were shame. When his heart is moved by thinking of his wrongs, if words were tame. Conrad, noble, meaning devil to my thought, so was he called, Steeped in brutish superstition, who my hope of life enthralled. Heir of Judas, yet I spare him ; aye, forgive him with the head. But the heart recoils in horror and the hand would kill instead. Yet I send no sorrowing message on the cold Siberian blast, Sweeping through my robe of shackles, bearing groans from skies o'ercast With the menaces of vengeance and the curses of despair. No, the word I send is sweet as ever breathed on summer air. " Wonderful goddess fair, Crowned with auroral hair" VLADIMIR. 1 1 In the old Ukranian meadows, when the sun dips in the west ; When, as cattle cease their grazing and the throstle seeks her nest. Cooing lovers' low communion mingles with the rippling stream, And the very soul of Nature slumbers in a blissful dream. If the time you read this message, man of hope — for you must know That for you it is intended — if the time be when the snow. Covering all the earth in beauty, fills the air with flecks of white. Floating softly, floating dowaward, glinting, sparkling in the light, Then you'll understand how true it is, the message that I bring. For the snow will aid your feelings as it prompts my heart to sing : Mistress, thy favor show. Heaven sent, crystal snow. Free as the fire-plume of starlight above ; Guard well the greeting, Through the years fleeting. Guard thine own message — a message of love. Wonderful goddess fair. Crowned with auroral hair, Stifling death's minions where'er thou dost move ; Foe to obscurity, Sceptred with purity. Guard well the message — thy message of love. 12 VLADIMIR. CANTO II. LIFE AND PATRIOTISM. Wonderful is this existence with its worlds of life and mind. Wonderful is heat, and sunlight, and the way our earth's in- clined. Making vernal bud and streamlet, like pulsations of a heart Chilled by some obstructing terror, into life and being start. It was in that buoyant season,- in the springtime long ago. Just as granulating juices of the maple ceased to flow. And the mottled-throated skylark, with his song of purest gold. Was returning to the northward from Egyptian swamp and wold. That I, Vladimir, the student, not the mystic priest as now, Fresh from Cracow and from study, ere a white hair knew my brow. Was installed as church confessor in a village of the vale Where the Dnieper's rhythmic waters tell their old and simple tale. How the snow and ice-bound torrents melt before the vernal air, Ever changeful, never changing, joy to-day, to-day despair. How the waves of that cold river — Cold, dark river — On forever Through the channels of my memory do roll ; How they wildly, madly dash on. Stirring up the depths of passion, 'Mid the slumbering recollections of the soul. VLADIMIR. 13 How that broadening, silver river — Placid river, Without quiver On its sheens-still lights the border where it glides, Till again the sun-flowers glisten. And the maples seem to listen, As I list to catch the music of its tides. O, thou noble, wondrous Dnieper — Sacred Dnieper ! Sinking deeper In my being as the years above me roll ; Changeful as the youthful passion, How I love to hear thee dash on. How I love to hear thy murmur in my soul. In that village, where the river leaves the rocky steppe's unrest To adopt the laughing waters of a streamlet from the west. How I sought to build up people by example and by truth. Through the service of our Holy Church, inspired with zeal of youth. Let him say who comes in earnest to believe the greatest good Lies in doing good to others, sinking self in brotherhood. Ah, I knew not then the license and the craven greed that reign Throughout all the Czar's dominions, and not less in fair Ukraine. 14 VLADIMIR. All my youth in abbey schools immured, since Borodino's field Robbed me of my noble father, I knew not how hearts will yield To the jingling of the rouble, nor how conscience bends to gold ; How among the pious priesthood crime is bought and crime is sold. But the duties of confessor opened wide my wondering eyes To a state of moral deadness, which the plans I might devise Could arrest as breath a whirlwind, or as straws resist the sea When the tides o'ersweep the lowlands from the raging Zuyder Zee. I had sought foundations stronger than mere form and creed supply ; Had endeavored to find causes why men live and why they die. Many a night until the dawning had I conned forbidden tomes. Scientific speculation, themes denied all Russian homes. Many a night from sleepless pillow had I paced my chamber through. Seeking light amid the darkness, seeking truth which should be true — True as God, as God eternal — dreammg dreams, though not in sleep. Forming plans until the morjiing and the birds began to peep. Thus, no doubt, I dwelt suspected ; secret thought no man can hide. Oft the ones I would enlighten stroiie my wandering feet to guide. 'Until the morning and the birds began to peep." VLADIMIR. 17 Thus Raskolnik was thrown at me, heretic, because I sought Solid reasons for each dogma, for each requisite inwrought With the formulas of worship. In disgust with men mature, To the young I gave attention, striving to make children pure By ejecting thoughts of evil and instilling thoughts of good ; .Teaching them, the thought resisted, evil deeds will be withstood. Life's a chain of compromises, partly pure and partly base. Welded of defective nature, golden motives, leaden place. Owing to the Czar's restrictions Russian speech alone was free. So I taught the Latin language to all comers without fee ; Taught them Latin as the written and historic Polish tongue. In the themes which Kochanowski and his master, Virgil, sung. Feud of Greek and Romish churches brought me pupils of a class — Of the poor but haughty nobles who observe the Latin mass. I had entertained a feeling, which I dared not utter then, That if purity of purpose once pervaded Polish men, Once again should grand old Poland lift her head in honest pride. Mark the vanity of labor — of the straw against the tide ; Mark the vanity of labor such as mine, when every seed Fell on ground sown thick with vengeance ; when the mother's tears each weed Wet and nourished as a virtue ; when that piteous song was sung 1 8 VLADIMIR. In each home where reigned the Moskal and prevailed the Polish tongue : " Oh, Polish mother, teach thy son What fetters are and iron chains ; That he quail not at gibbet's noose, Nor at the headsman's bloody stains. Make Polish cradles prison-shaped, And slake with blood the infant's thirst ; Teach thou the boy to lie, deceive, And strike the steel to hearts accursed. His manhood's honor and his life Will challenged be by dastard spy ; His blood will bathe some secret cell ; A venal judge his cause will try ; A gallows be his monument ; His name be breathed with bated breath ; Teach thou the boy to die content. For Polish liberty is death." * These things taught me man's relations — man redeemed, regenerate. Must reach higher and go deeper than the structure of a state. * Close to the original Polish. "Party-hucd as butterflies, six summers flitted tandem by.' VLADIMIR. 21 What are states but tents or cabins built for temporary use ? Not machines for tyrant's profit — for some selfish king's abuse ; But that all may safe contribute by their work to one great end, Life within, without, forever — life to beautify and mend. Not the pain of mere existence, shadow of Tithonic ghost, Length of days is truly given to the one who thinks the most ; Thinks judicious thoughts and acts them ; midwife states are for the birth Of heroic men and women bursting through the bonds of earth. Forced to suffer, I consider loss of country, home and friends, Even torture compensated in the truth the tundra sends. Aye, the tundra's beauteous dweller, fresh and pure, the sacred snow! Strange infatuation, think you .' Listen well and you shall know. CANTO in. WHAT IS LOVE. Party-hued as butterflies six summers flitted tandem by. And the spell of springwas on the land the seventh summer nigh. One bright morning I was seated hearing boys and girls recite, Teaching them to think and study, shun the wrong and do the right, Underneath a spreading maple just beside the chapel door. With a clear, blue sky surmounting, underfoot a mossy floor. Kindly beamed the golden sunlight, softly breathed the western air. And a spirit of contentment seemed pervading all things there. 22 VLADIMIR. Tall young men and youthful maidens were translating Latin verse, How a queen loved one ^neas with a love which proved a curse. All were silent and attentive, save as each would read in turn ; All seemed filled with strengthened purpose and renewed desire to learn. There was one among the number with a seraph's ideal face. Thought and feeling subtly blended in an artist's dream of grace ; Her two blue eyes, gently laughing like a summer morning's sky, Harmonized with nut-brown tresses and the lips' vermilion dye, By that magic, blonde complexion, which the flowering, beauty stage Sometimes brings to mark the transit through the adoles- cent age ; Tall and graceful as a lily, every movement, every glance Seemed to breathe a charm unconscious, giving true life utter- ance. And I could not but admire her with a sacred tenderness, For none knew her but to love her, and none named her but to bless. O, great master poet, Virgil ! why did'st thou to make thy song Treat three hundred years as nothing and Phoenissa's memory wrong ? Since thy careless figure rendered real and vivid, though a lie. VLADIMIR. 23 Hast real injuries inflicted, worse than made feigned Dido die. Since to-day when Dido, smitten, cherishes within her veins Secret wounds of false lulus, and consumes with unseen pains, And the lovely maiden deftly turns her brilliant eyes toward mine, I behold amorent longutn elsewhere than the Latin line. O the wondrous, wondrous sunlight ! Why should'st thy mys- terious beam. Sent from eyes so pure, yet rival an avenging dagger's gleam Why should sunlight, pure and holy as the great white throne above. Set man's duty at defiance by a single glance of love ? Wonderful is this existence, with its worlds of life and mind ! Wonderful is Aphrodite and her sway o'er living kind ! And I wondered as I never had what is this thing called love ? Can the Christian God we worship be the same as pagan Jove ? Was this impulse of my being such as brought down Zeus to earth ? God is love ; all love is holy, kith and kin to moral worth ; If the laws of holy priesthood, by incentive from that throne, Where love reigns supreme, are broken, who shall God's own sin condone ? Fool or villain I regarded him who trifles with a heart. And I knew my duty better than to practise knavish art ; Still, there was a secret feeling, like a smouldering hidden fire, 24 VLADIMIR. Which would wane to friendship merely, and then grow to love's desire, Which removed by thought and judgment would not yield its vantage place ; Which, dethroned by change and absence, still would show some lingering trace. Yet the bent of rigid training, the conserving power of faith, Held my mind as if 'twere guarded by some friendly, watchful wraith. And I saw then more than ever, for the eye will follow thought. O'er the land the devastation which instinctive love has wrought. Love, when followed madly, blindly, as the moth pursues the flame. How it plants the seeds of sorrow with the sting of sin and shame ! How it stifles youth and beauty with the frigid grasp of care. Bartering a moment's pleasure for a lifetime of despair ! While my listening ears were greeted with a tremulous, low wail, Swelling to a shriek of anguish, upborne on the rising gale From the haunts where ruthless passion, spurning duty, truth and right. Shrouds all hope of high endeavor in the gloom of sensual night. VLADIMIR. 25 CANTO IV. APENITENT. Church confessionals, Erasmus* and the Christian fathers tell, Have their dangers, their disorders, and their crimes as black as hell: But one evening in the June-time after vespers had been sung. When a penitent in silence, slender, beautiful and young, Softly knelt beside the chancel, lifting up her sinless eyes. Was the sky of my life's heaven toward which sweetest memories rise; Was the axis of a lifetime round which dizzy being swung. As a full-orbed moon of happiness, high over passion hung ; Was as free from trace of evil as the image of a dove Glancing upward from the water as she cleaves the sky above. " Preceptor mens, oh, absolve, I pray, One sin that clouds my soul and makes me weep. By which I did, my mother, disobey. So kind and true ; since then — I grieve — nor sleep. Pardon, I pray, and O sir, be so kind. Tell me where I, the Moly plant, may find ! " * "Confitentes in eos saepe sacerdotes incidere, qui sub proetextu, confessionis patrant non referenda, proque medicis, fiunt aut socii, aut magistri, aut discipuli turpitudines." — Erasmus, Exomologia, p. 129. 26 VLADIMIR. "Daughter, the sensitive and pure in heart Feel little things as crimes affect the bad. Your thoughts are free, I'm sure, from guileful art. Absolved thou shalt be ; be, my child, not sad ; But tell me first what was this grevious sin, And why the Moly plant is coupled in." "I love. My mother fears 'tis Conrad's suit Who claims me ward ; and often has she warned Me of his art, half wizard and half brute. I love, and dare not tell ; her, have I scorned ; But if the Moly plant I did but know, I'm told its virtues would relieve my woe. " Absolve te. My child you are deceived, The plant is fabulous, they told you lies. That blossom white, which Circe's spells relieved. Is only found within a lover's eyes." Quickly she cried ; " If you would only deign To look in mine, no doubt 'twould ease my pain ! " As sparrows flee the swift-winged falcon's brood. When rustling wings presage her presence near. So pain fled swift from eyes that understood. And minds in unison expelled each fear. Each read the other's soul, an open book. And thought was purified by each fond look. ' For love's self had built an altar and conducted service there.' VLADIMIR. 29 Though the ancient stalls were empty and the organ's soul at rest, Grander music never echoed, than the tones which filled my breast. Though the lamps were shining dimly, never did a brighter flame Light the hearts of priest or people, than upon our pathway came. Never was a purer worship, never rose a holier prayer ; For love's self had built an altar and conducted service there. " What is love, preceptor mens, for I know you hold it higher Than the vulgus ; is it Deus wiagnus truly ? Is it real celestial fire? Or a bird terrestrial merely, fluttering in its native nest } Tell me, teacher, tell sincerely and dispel my heart's unrest." " God knows only, child supernal ; I might call it daintiest pearl, Found upon the rocks eternal, glistening on the brow of girl ; Or a gem by fairies given, made of lovers' secret tears. Brightest star in manhood's heaven, sparkling human hopes and fears ; Call it light of nature's beauty, of which all things else are shade ; Power impelling heavenly duty, by which all things else are made; Plant, that breathes out every sweetness, all delights, 'tis even so; 30 VLADIMIR. But what love is in completeness, God himself can only know. Tis not passion, ask the mother when she weeps her last adieu, Striving sobs in vain to smother, as her darling sinks from view. 'Tis not reason, see art's frenzy chiselling rapture from the stone ; 'Tis not anything, but all things ; love is love, and love alone." Father Time, the ceaseless weaver, weaving in his summer weft, Changed his shuttle into Autumn, and the heightened colors deft, Lay luxuriant on the forest, swampy waste and stubble-field. Mingling clover gray and withered, silver lake and sombre weald. In a vision fair as heaven, if the human eye had seen All the beauty of the picture or had heaven known, I ween. Meanwhile that same subtle passion as a sacred, vestal fire, Now would wane to friendship merely and then grow to love's desire. For a vestal maid in silence innocent as morning dew. By her blush, her look and gesture, fed the flame on which it grew. " In a vision fair as heaven.' VLADIMIR. 33 CANTO V. A CRIMINAL. Church confessions, as Erasmus and ten thousand more could tell, Cover paltry, foolish errors and some crimes as black as hell. Just as ripples of the morning poured their light o'er eastern hills, Came, one day, a burly rufBan, who in guttural accents, yells, " Let me in ! Come, Pope, absolve me ! " In he thrust his hag- gard jaw ; " Keep you secrets .' " " Truly," said I, " all are kept by our church law."* " Then absolve me. Pope, of murder of a woman weak and frail ; 'Twas to save her daughter's honor — crushed her skull in, — why so pale.? Pope, there's money ! Quick absolve me ! " Down he threw his sordid gold — " Wretch," I cried, " I'll keep your secret, since by law no crimes are told," (I had recognized that suitor for her hand, my sweet girl friend) " But I'll kill you to absolve you, and your cursed being end ! " * Gravius pfeccat sacerdos qui peccatum reveJat, quam homo qui peccatum com- mittie. — Concil. Later. IV. 34 VLADIMIR. Frightened, back he sprang and darted as a wolf escapes a foe. While I checked my maddened impulse, checked pursuit, with- held the blow. What is that in mind and nature of which human lore is dumb. Oft impressing us with knowledge of things distant or to come ? Somehow an impending danger seemed pervading all my frame, And before the morning ended a fulfilment it became. Sounds of men came near my dwelling, uttering fierce and fright- ful lies. Growing like a sullen tempest, till I saw their glaring eyes ; " Priest, you did it ! " " Canting villain ! " " See the mur- derous hypocrite ! " " Look, the test lines of the guilty on his coward brow are knit ! " " Burn him ! " " Hang him ! " " Dost confess it ? " Though I firmly answered, " No," I could not deny a knowledge which I could in no wise show. Much of human life is craven, they who knew me innocent. Chuckled at the rash reformer, ate their bread and were con- tent. Fawning slaves of Russia's tyrant spying out my secret thought. Laughed with open satisfaction that the scheming priest was caught. " Back he sprang and darted as a wolf escapes a foe." VLADIMIR. 37 All this gave me small annoyance till a jailer said her voice Had been lifted up against me. Could I think it ? I'd no choice, Nothing but the jailer's prattle, yet the doubt, the mournful pang, Rolling as a funeral dead-march, ever through my being rang. Ah, the depths of human anguish ! Who can tell another's woe? Not by thinking, not by feeling; there are depths one may not know ; But the keenest throe of sorrow with the memory inwove. Is the pang we feel when innocent, condemned by those we love. So I sullenly submitted, bound in chains I did not feel, , To demands the most repulsive, since to none could I appeal. Doubting God and man despising, toiling in a loathsome mine. Till by chance some muttered language was mistaken for a sign. A " Blazhennie ! " * cried the keeper, and from that time I was free — Free at will to roam the tundra. Ah, the fruits of liberty ! * The mental condition of the 5/azAf«K« (from Wa^o, favor, Russ.), or blessed people, is regarded by the Siberians as indicating supernatural possession. 38 VLADIMIR. CANTO VI. A REVELATION. Years had passed and still the maiden of the border filled my thought ; Still I wondered why weak mortals should by love be so dis- traught. If there is a power in all things which frail human nature guides, What is love, that true affection violence so oft divides ? Wandering o'er the snow-bound tundra, hair and beard as white as snow. Whether spirits of the snow-realms were deceived I do not know ; But one day, when whirling columns from the north had swept along. And weird shapes of snow and vapor all about me seemed to throng. Voices clear, yet loud as thunder, on my startled senses rolled :, Love is one now and forever, never new and never old! Life outspreading through all natitre rising in the human frame,. Grows to love, which may be pleasure or the source of lowest shame ^ Just as he who has it knows it, and its action can control. Will it be a power upbuilding and refining all his soul. " Voices clear, yet loud as thunder, on my startled senses rolled." VLADIMIR. 41 Men are weak in mind and body, life and love they do not know, But as earth swings on its circuit this shall not be always so. In the days of man primeval human love resembled brute. And the sway of simple passion was supreme and absolute. Food and air and sun uniting swelled the framework and the skin. Till the force without was balanced by the growing force within. Then the power of life increasing, plethoric within each frame. Grew intense, until resistless a new impulse it became. Men successive fell as victims of the law controlling race ; Aloe-like each bloomed and perished, and the old to new gave place. Thus improvement, tiever ceasing, building new life out of death. Shall persist till Life's real meaning every eye encountereth. Man is weak, and each secretion, every tear that dims his eye. Is a proof that in his weakness he is surely doomed to die. Life itself is but a rider on the myriad steeds of death. Since some tissue, some secretioti, lives aud dies at every breath. But the force which binds the, atoms, which controls secreting glands. Is the same that guides the planets, acting by divine commands. And that power supreme, eternal, never swerving from its source. Would upbuild man's life forever if he knew the proper course. Men are weak in mind and body, life and love they do not know. But as earth swings on its circuit this shall not be always so. Wondering much at such communion, I, who drank the blood- red wine Pressed from agony's own fruitage, thought my sufferings but a sign 42 VLADIMIR. For the nations, and so daily sought I converse with the snow. Since I learned a wondrous secret that humanity should know. Every substance hath transmissive power, peculiar to its kind. By which all things that it touches may be read by every mind That shall find its rate of movement and the impress of its art. But the key to such discernment is a healthful life, apart From all vice, at one with Nature, and a soul as keen as fire To perceive far distant objects — whatsoe'er it may desire. The steppe, so bleak to uninstructed eyes. Is answered prayer, allaying all my fears. Rough tempests break as fall a maiden's sighs. And lowering clouds are but as beauty's tears. The calm, white snow, a seeming shroud of death. Is heaven's angel, breathing God's own breath. Though freezing cold she warms my mental frame ; Her silent flashes light up all the soul, Setting the torches of dull thought aflame, Till mingling in one vivid aureole, Whose rays the future and the past illume. The Truth stands radiant in the shrinking gloom. Thus I saw the wondrous future breaking through the sky of doubt ; Saw the natural forces humbled, superstition put to rout. VLADIMIR. 43 Saw Malthusian law everted by the chemist's art betrayed ; Nutrient nature's process stolen, food of simplest substance made. Saw the gleaming of the squadrons shooting out athwart the sun, And the weirdest, strangest fables by the truth itself outdone. Thus I saw the cherished maiden once again, but not the same. And I'm sure I heard her utter words of kindness toward my name. When a sigh rose from her bosom, and a tear-drop dimmed her eye, Then I knew despite our frailty, love itself can never die. Thus I saw an age fast coming, marshalled by approaching years. When dispelled were all the doubtings, laid aside were all the fears. Saw an age when love triumphant should raise man above the clod. Should complete him and perfect him, build him up into a god ; When a world of truth and grandeur, rolling in eternal light. Without violence or fury, void of woe, and void of night, Covered o'er with shapes of beauty, filling full the artist's dream. Should reveal a perfect heaven, should a home eternal seem. When the powers of men and women had become the power of life ; 44 VLADIMIR. When no nation needed rulers, when had ceased all human strife ; Apathy and sickness, sorrow, pain and death, had passed away. And each new succeeding morrow ushered in a brighter day. Ever growing in their knowledge, rising to some grander height, All the dwellers were immortal workmen in the realms of light. Thus I heard a voice angelic crying, " Love hath conquered lust! Let there now begin the labors of revivifying dust ; Let thy living life, O angels, touch the slumbering thought of those — All ye knew who loved in sorrow and in seeming dust repose ; For by love the living liveth, and by love the dead shall rise, — Rise from shame and disappointment to an endless paradise ! " And the ages rolled before me and the generations rose. All who once had loved in sorrow and in sorrow sought repose. Thus I learned that love enlightened, which to impulse never yields. May be power to lift man's nature up to higher, nobler fields. As the flower of rarest fragrance may not yield its fruit at all. As the bird of strongest pinion soaring farthest will not fall. So is love that burns the dross away and leaves the conscience pure ; So is love that nerves anew the hand and makes the will en- dure ; VLADIMIR. 45 So is love that oft unmated has the greatest ends achieved, By the strength which loss engendered when of dearest hopes bereaved. And when love and thought are strengthened so that both con- ceive their power, When the one the life upbuildeth and the other guides, — that hour Shall behold a transformation in the world of sense and thought And a change from earth to heaven in humanity be wrought. What if monachal acetic, in his cavern or his cell. By self-mortifying tortures, of existence makes a hell .' What if struggling crazed fanatic all his better life press down. Thinking by his self-denial to attain a heavenly crown ? What if rigid churchman straineth to observe each petty form. That he may in robes majestic, heaven's holy ramparts storm } What if pious zealot, meekly with his eye on Jesu's face. Wait in child-like dumb submission to be saved by heavenly grace ? Are these yearnings., of the human nothing, then, but childish play? Or do they presage a purpose to be realized some day ? If no purpose, they show power, which, when led by love aright. Shall lift man from earth to heaven, which shall conquer death and night. 46 VLADIMIR. ADDENDA. To the north at hour of midnight, swiftly borne on hidden wing, Passed a storm with eyes of lightning as some weird and living thing. Streams of vivid, crimson flashes, flickering like spectres red. East and west, had from the pole-star, shone and vanished over- head. Armies, glittering with lances and bright bannerets of blue, Charged battalions of pale goblins, decked with flags of strange, weird hue. Suddenly these all were vanished and the north one arch of light Shone with an unearthly splendor, dazzling, mocking human sight ! Then the storm and great white columns, towering up the darkened sky. Giant sons of white-haired Coelus, swept in awesome figure by. Robe and beard of snowy whiteness, with his face a glittering white, Passed a man, his feet in shackles, like a spectre in the night. Never again that strange, old mystic shall a human being know ; Gone with the storm and none know whither, save the powers which rule the snow. The Possibility of Not Dying. By Hyland C. Kirk. i6mo, 75 Cents. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, NEW YORK. Curious and startling speculations. — Providence Journal ^ R. I. Thoughtful people will find the book worth reading. — Worcester Spy. Will receive no favor from fanatics, but be read with interest by scholars in search of XxM'Ca..— Rochester Herald, The effort of the author Is at once schol- arly, ingenious and ^^^x^wyg.— Good Lit- erature. A little volume written by a man who possesses not only aspund mind, but strong and logical reasoning ^o^^t^.— St. Joseph Herald^ Mo. If his theories were confined to the spirit- ual nature of man they would hardly be challenged. — Evening Bulletin^ San Fran- cisco. The book has, aside from the pleasing and scholarly manner in which the subject is treated, the great merit of brevity. — Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Mr. Kirk considers the matter from the point of view of evolution, which, as it raises humanity to a plane of higher possi- bilities, may find everlasting life among them. — The Popular Science Monthly. Those w^ho would see a peculiar argument for a curious speculation would do well to read this volume. — Chicago Tribune. Though the reader may not coincide with the conclusions arrived at by the author, it will be impossible to help acknowledging the ingenuity of his reasoning or the ele- gance of his language. — N. Y. Commercial A dziertiser. The author writes in a philosophic and calm spirit, and his book is the outgrowth of that science falsely so-called which is in these days so popular.— The Churchman. He does discuss intensely interesting sub- jects, some of them such as do not often reach discussion, and yet that affect every man tremendously. — Neiv York Times. A somewhat remarkable book.— TVjraj Si/tings. Thoughtful, intelligent and temperate. — Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, Shows much clearness in theorizing. — San Francisco Chronicle. It is a bold speculation in regard to a possible immortality of the hoAy .—Portland Transcript^ Me. Naturally the author can only speculate and theorize, but he does both in a learned, intelligent, and, upon the whole, acceptable way. — New Orleans Picayune. He is a thoughtful writer, who has read extensively in lines akin to his subject.— Congregationalist. The work is an ingenious presentation' and commingling of scientific facts and theorizing, and indicates great depth and breadth of thought, scholarly research, originality of conception, and positiveness of view. — Troy Times., N. Y. There is an earnest spirit manifest in the book, -and the dreamy, curious, yet earnest and spiritual love which pervades it, makes it very fascinating. — Globe., St. John, N. B. Mr. Kirk's earnest and well-written little volume has been received with the usual amount of ridicule and misrepresentation by the people who have not read it. The ingenuity and frankness with which the doctrine has been stated and illustrated are worthy of all ^r^\%^.— Rochester Post-Ex- press. To say the least, it is worthy of the tribute of a careful reading. There is without question more than a possibility that spirit or mind may in the coming future so far dominate matter that its vitality may be in- definitely conserved, and the forces of in- tegration outbalance those of decay. — Min- neapolis Tribune.