outburst in Perseus represents an occurrence of this sort, and that the star and nebula will disappear from view after a few weeks or months."

Photography has recently played a very important part in the study of the stars, as the camera will often detect a star that eludes the eye, even with the best modern instruments. In fact, two Novæ were discovered by the photographic plate, one in 1893 and another in 1895, at the Harvard College station in South America. When these were examined with the spectroscope, they showed the same bright and dark lines as those above mentioned. This leads Professor Young to remark: "It now seems rather probable that 'new stars' are not really extremely rare, and it is clear that there are important physical resemblances between them."

When the news of the discovery of Nova Persei was received at the Harvard observatory, an examination of the photographs of that region of sky for a month previous was at once made. Curiously enough, the new star appeared on the plates for February 2, 6, 8, 18 and 19; so the Harvard camera was after all the real discoverer. - Nature Study.

A THOUGHT ABOUT AN ATOм. In dealing with questions of this nature, the imagination has to be called upon, to a large degree, and in order to comprehend a mental picture has to be called up. These facts must be kept in mind, in the following: Imagine a molecule divided into any number of atoms the number makes no difference and each atom, as the definition of an atom signifies, is capable of no further sudivision. Again, imagine the attempt to be made, of a further subdivision of an atom - and we have force! In other words, our atom, no longer materially physical by the attempt at subdivision, has become a vibratory principle, for foree is vribration. Thus an atom might be defined as invisible in imagination, remember - force, or personified force. Or, again, comprehensive force is an atom. Various degrees of this vibratory force would give us, the different kinds of atoms; and the degree of the determinating force would give the shape of the molecule, in addition to the number of forces or atoms composing the molecule.

Edgar A. Poe in the Spirit World.

FOUR POEMS BY THOMAS LAKE HARRIS.

From the Body's haunted palace, from the heart's unholy shrine,
Where the Spirit drinks the challice, filled with agony for wine;
And the empyreal glories through the blackened windows shine,
An reveal the pictured stories of the Awful and Sublime.

Dimly frescoed on the arches by the weired magician, Time.

1 went forth, for blows were falling on the crumbling outer door;
And a Voice was calling, calling, I had heard in dreams before.
Then my life ebbed through the portal, as a wave edds from the shore;
And I heard the storms immortal through the ruined palace roar,
And Death's choir of desolation chanting dirges evermore.

Loud the Spirit Winds were wailing when I left the haunted fane;
Soon the rushing blast prevailing, quenched my Fancy's busy flame;
Then the spark that lingered onely, died beneath the sullen rain;
And Thought whispered, Thou dost only as a spectral shade remain,
In the Rhadamanthine darkness, in the Tartarean pain.'

Half benumbed, half wild and frantic, I stood out beyond the formed;
When a Demon Shape gigantic, lurid, glimmered through the storm.
With his fire will he tore me from death's vestibule forlorn;
With his flamy breath he bore me, saying, Hail! Thou Spirit-born,'
As an arrow cleaves the tempest, to the awful judgment morn.

So into the wild Hereafter, that my Spirit long to know,

I was borne; while mimic laughter waved about me, to and fro.
Far above the light of Phoebus shone the pure Elysian glow;
But the terrible Erebus with hell of thought below,

From whose burnings ancient Dives saw the Aidenn mount of snow.

Then I knew that outward feigning hid the inward hell from sight;
And I knew that weak complaining armed each agony with might;
So I mimicked desperate gladness, shouting wildly through the night,
And I girt my soul with madness, for the everlasting fight,

As the serpent hisses blindly when the thunderstorms affright.

Then I screamed, God! launch thy thunders, pour the lightnings of thine ire Still my mind, in poet numbers, shall exult upon the pyre;

The aby smal storms have bound me, and 1 feel eternal fire;

Hell is in me and around me, but I still can sweep the lyre.

Plunge me headlong through red Sheol, still thy numbers shall aspire.'

Then a form from, clouds unveiling, spake, through smoke-wreaths dark and O'er the sea of bame prevailing, Very bravely thou has done,

Thou, of night the firey Psalmist, to shoot arrows at the sun!
But he only who is calmest in the meteor path can run,
Till the goal of resurrection in the outward form is won.

We are all lost together, of our hopes but these remain;
If they fail us, then forever we shall die, in spirit-pain."
We must rise, on spirit pinions, and possess the earth again,
And subdue its bright dominions, and as God rules over men.

If we rule the ascending planet, who shall chain our pinions then?

True we suffer, but no mortal must conceive our real estate;
Else we cannot pass the portal, or possess the outer gate.
We are veiled in form and feature, we portray the wise and great;
And we come as Lords of Nature, in the majesty of fate,
Unto nations who already with our madness are elate.

[dun,

Therefore, Harmony and Glory 'is the watchword of our Host;
And Progression' is the story of each lost and ruined ghost.
Each, with banner of deception, stands, appointed to his post;
Thus we fight for Resurrection on the drear Atlantic coast,

He strives most to teach 'no peril,' who is agnonized the most.

In the council of the Princes of our darkness we have sworn,
That no Spirit, who evinces fear of judgment, shall return.
See our Chieftian, like a comet in the lurid darkness burn;
He has bound by oath each Spirit first and last the Cross to spurn; .
And to teach that every mortal shall be God as was a worm.
June, 1853.

The Awakening.

A lurid mantle wrapped my Spirit form,
Cradled in lightinings and in whirlwinds born;
Torn from the body, terribly downcast,
Plunged headlong through red furnaces in blast.
Those seething torrents maddened me; I fell,
But woke in Paradise instead of Hell.

Like song-waves circling in a golden bell,

Like fragrant odors in a woodbine dell,

Like glowing pistils in a rose unblown,

Like all sweet dreams to Saints in slumber shown.

Like Heaven itself, like joy incarnate given;

And, as a ship, through wintry whirlwinds driven,
Finds land-locked port in Araby the blest,

So I, through terror, entered into rest,

Then there came my Fancy's Maiden,
From her dim and mystic Aidenn,

And a light from her full bosom shone her Angel-form before.
And she whispered as the roses

When the blushing bud uncloses,

And like dew from off a blossom fell her speech for evermore.

'I have waited, I have waited,

As the evening star belated,

When it lingers pale and lonely by the purple sunset door.

I have found thee, I have found thee,

And with heart-spells fast have bound thee,'

So from out our glowing halo sang the Angel-Maid Lenore.

To my wrapt, enamored seeming,

Framed amid the golden gleaming,

Like a star in its own brightness, high above the ocean's floor;
Shone the lovely apparition.

And from Earth's accursed perdition,

I was lifted by the Angel, and my death-in-life was o'er.

O the sorrow, the despairing,

The weird terror phrased with daring,

The wild wind-storms of remorses that my earth-bound spirit bore. Like the tempest-lashed Atlantic,

With my anguish I was frantic;

And the serpent men named hunger' gnawed into my bosom's core.

While on earth the poet hungered

For heart-bread, the gay world wondered,

And poor beggars spurned the rich man, heaping curses evermore.

Till I prostrate fell, despairing

In my anguished breast unsharing

All Earth's undivided sorrows, crushed as never man before.

I was mad with desolation,

Like a sun from out creation

Stricken rudely, and its brightness turned to blood upon its shore.

I for years was broken-hearted;

Long before my youth departed,

But a heart by Fate down-trodden into palpitating gore.

And I fled Life's outer portal,

Deeming anguish was immortal,

Crying, Launch thy heavy thunders; tell me never to adore.
Hate for hate, and curse for curses,

Through abysmal universes,

Plung me down as lost Archangels fell despairingly of yore.

So the whirlwind bore my spirit,

But to lands the Saints inherit;

And it seems my heart forever like a ruby cup runs o'er.

I am blessed beyond all blessing,

And an Angel's pure caressing

Flows around my soul forever like a stream around its shore. November 30, 1854.

The Raven.

Fires within my brain were burning; scorning life, despairing, yearning,
Hopeless, blinded in my anguish; through my body's open door,
Came a Raven, foul and sable, like those evil birds of fable,

Downward stooping where the drooping spectres haunt the Stygian shore;
Not a bird; but something more.

Ghosts of agonies departed, festering wounds that long had smarted,
Broken vows, returnless mornings, griefs and miseries of yore,
By some art revived; undaunted I gazed steadfast; the enchanted
Black, infernal Raven uttered a wild dirge-note evermore.

Not a bird; but something more.

Gazing steady, gazing madly on the bird, I spake, and sadly,
Broken down too deep for scorning, sought for mercy to implore.
Turning to the bird, I blessed it; in my bosom I carressed it;'
Still it pierced my heart, and revelled in the palpitating gore;

"Twas a bird; and something more.

I grew mad. The crowding fancies; black weeds tey, not blooming pansies;
Made me think the bird a Spirit. Bird,' I cried, ' be bird no more.
Take a shape; be man; be devil; be a snake; rise from thy revel,
From thy banquet rise; be human; I have seen thee oft before;

Thou art bird and; and something more.'

Tapping, tapping, striking deeper, rousing Pain, my body's keeper,
Thou hast oft erewhile sought entrance at the heart's great palace door.
Take thy shape, O gloomy demon, friend or Spirit most inhuman,
Strike me through; but first unveiling, let me scan thee o'er and o'er;
Thou art bird; but something more.

Still, with sable pinions flapping, the great Raven, tapping, tapping,
Struck into my breast his talons; vast his wings outspread and o'er
All my nature cast a pallor; but I strove with dying valor,
With the poignard of repulsion striking through the form it wore.
Not a bird; but something more.

O thou huge, infernal Raven, image that Hell's king hath graven,
Image growing more gigantic, nursed beyond the Stygian shore;
Leave me, leave me, I beseech thee, I would not of wrong impeach thee.'
I cried madly. Then earth opened with a brazen, earthquake roar.

'Twas a bird; a Demon more.

Downward, downward, circling, speeding, cries of anguish still unheeding,
Striking through me with his tallous, still that Raven shape he bore;
Unto Erebus we drifted; his huge wings, by thunder lifted,

Beat 'gainst drifts of white flame lightning, sprinkled red with humau gore. 'Twas a bird; a Demon more.

'I'm no bird; an Angel, Brother, a bright Spirit and none other;
I have waited, blissful, tended thee for thirty years or more;
In thy wild illusive madness, in thy blight, disease, and sadness,
I have sounded, tapping, tapping, at thy Spirit's Eden door;
Nor a bird; an Angel more.

Shining down with light Elysian, through the pearly gates of vision,
On thy tranced, soul-sighted fancy, when, across thy chamber-floor,
Fell the spirit moonlight laden with soft dews from trees in Aidenn,
Shaken downward, still nepenthe, drunk by dreaming bards of yore;
Not a bird; an Angel more.

In my Palmyrean splendor, in Zenobian regnance tender,
More than Roman, though Aurelian were the kingly name I bore,
I have left my Angel-palace, dropging in thy sorrow's chalice
Consolation. O'twas blessed, sweet, thy pillow to bend o'er;
Not a bird; an Angel more.

Ended in life's mocking fever; where, through citron-groves forever
Blows the spice-wind, and the love-birds tell their rapture o'er and o'er;
From earth's hell by Afrits haunted, from its evils disenchanted,

I have borne thee; gaze upon me; didst thou see me e'er before?
Not a fiend; an Angel more.

And I wakened; if to waken be to dwell, by grief forsaken,
With the God who dwelt with Angels in the shining age of yore;
And I stood sublime, victorious, while below lay earth, with glorious
Realms of Angels, shining crown-like on its temples evermore.

Not a corpse; a woman more.

Earth,' I cried, 'thy clouds are shadows, from the Asphodelian meadows
Of the sky-world floating downward, pearly rains that from them pour;
Love's own Heaven, thy mother, bore thee, and the Father, God, bends o'er thee;
"Tis His hand that crowns thy forehead; thou shalt live for evermore;
Not an Earth; an Eden more.

As a gem has many gleamings, and a day has many beamings,
And a garden many roses, thrilled with sweetness to the core;
So the soul hath many ages, and the Life Book many pages,
And the heart's great Gospel opens where the Seraphim adore;
Not a Heart; Love's Angel more.

I will write a book hereafter, cheerful as a baby's laughter,
When a mother's bacast o'er leans it on the sainted Spirit-shore;
Like Apollo, the far-darter, I, the poet and the martyr,
Will chant paæans of soul-music that shall live for evermore.
Not a fiend; a Brother more,

June 15, 1656.

CONCLUSION.

Yes! I hated like the devil; as the black ghouls madly revel
On white corpses, newly buried, I was tortured by despair.
'Life,' I said, like awful surges, when the winds ply all their scourges,
On the tempest-tossed Atlantic is lashed on by Hate and Care.'
But not now. My Spirit lingers where, with blessed Angel-fingers,
Love's white hand unclasps the treasure called the Gospel; there I see
All my heart unveiled before me, while a Voice is hymning o'er me,
Look to Him who comes from Heaven; in His Life is life for thee.

Awful! awful! as the smitten world, by lurid death-fires litten,
Falling like a stricken monarch whom the multitudes adore;
With its nations blindly reeling, in the anarchy of feeling,
And the terror of the senses, in the earth-life I deplore.

God forgave me hate and scorning, changed my midnight into morning;
Like a snow-white lamb I follow where my Shepherd leads the way.
I have learned to live for others; all mankind are now my brothers!

I am rising, ever rising, to the pure and perfect day.

June 11, 1857.

(See N. & Q., Vol. XVI, pp. 175-190. December, 1898.)