of the soul,--the shock and surprise of grief in
the face of the world made desolate. Loneliness and despair for a space,
and then, like stars in the night, the new births of the spirit, the
wonderful outcoming from sorrow: the mild light of patience at first;
hope and faith kindled afresh in the very jaws of evil; the new meaning
and worth of life beyond sorrow, beyond joy; and finally duty, the
holiest word of all, that leads at last to victory and peace. The poem
rounds and completes itself with the close of "the long, rich day," and
the release of

"The mystic winged and flickering butterfly,
A human soul, that drifts at liberty,
Ah! who can tell to what strange paradise,
To what undreamed-of fields and lofty skies!"

We have dwelt at some length upon this poem, which seems to us, in a
certain sense, subjective and biographical; but upon closer analysis
there is still another conclusion to arrive at. In "Epochs" we have,
doubtless, the impress of a calamity brought very near to the writer,
and profoundly working upon her sensibilities; not however by direct,
but reflex action, as it were, and through sympathetic emotion--the
emotion of the deeply-stirred spectator, of the artist, the poet who
lives in the lives of others, and makes their joys and their sorrows his
own.

Before dismissing this volume we may point out another clue as to the
shaping of mind and character. The poem of "Admetus" is dedicated "to
my friend Ralph Waldo Emerson." Emma Lazarus was between seventeen and
eighteen years of age when the writings of Emerson fell into her hands,
and it would be difficult to over-estimate the impression produced upon
her. As she afterwards wrote: "To how many thousand youthful hearts has
not his word been the beacon--nay, more, the guiding star--that led them
safely through periods of mental storm and struggle!" Of no one is this
more true than herself. Left, to a certain extent, without compass or
guide, without any positive or effective religious training, this was
the first great moral revelation of her life. We can easily realize
the chaos and ferment of an over-stimulated brain, steeped in romantic
literature, and given over to the wayward leadings of the imagination.
Who can tell what is true, what is false, in a world where fantasy is as
real as fact? Emerson's word fell like truth itself, "a shaft of light
shot from the zenith," a golden rule of thought