ck electric,--and nested 'neath its wing.

"We clove the air; passed systems, suns, and moons: what seem from
Mardi's isles, the glow-worm stars.

"By distant fleets of worlds we sped, as voyagers pass far sails at
sea, and hail them not. Foam played before them as they darted on;
wild music was their wake; and many tracks of sound we crossed, where
worlds had sailed before.

"Soon, we gained a point, where a new heaven was seen; whence all our
firmament seemed one nebula. Its glories burned like thousand
steadfast-flaming lights.

"Here hived the worlds in swarms: and gave forth sweets ineffable.

"We lighted on a ring, circling a space, where mornings seemed forever
dawning over worlds unlike.

"'Here,' I heard, 'thou viewest thy Mardi's Heaven. Herein each world
is portioned.'

"As he who climbs to mountain tops pants hard for breath; so panted I
for Mardi's grosser air. But that which caused my flesh to faint, was
new vitality to my soul. My eyes swept over all before me. The spheres
were plain as villages that dot a landscape. I saw most beauteous
forms, yet like our own. Strange sounds I heard of gladness that
seemed mixed with sadness:--a low, sweet harmony of both. Else, I know
not how to phrase what never man but me e'er heard.

"'In these blest souls are blent,' my guide discoursed, 'far higher
thoughts, and sweeter plaints than thine. Rude joy were discord here.
And as a sudden shout in thy hushed mountain-passes brings down the
awful avalanche; so one note of laughter here, might start some white
and silent world.'

"Then low I murmured:--'Is their's, oh guide! no happiness supreme?
their state still mixed? Sigh these yet to know? Can these sin?'

"Then I heard:--'No mind but Oro's can know all; no mind that knows
not all can be content; content alone approximates to happiness.
Holiness comes by wisdom; and it is because great Oro is supremely
wise, that He's supremely holy. But as perfect wisdom can be only
Oro's; so, perfect holiness is his alone. And whoso is otherwise than
perfect in his holiness, is liable to sin.

"'And though death gave these beings knowledge, it also opened other
mysteries, which they pant to know, and yet may learn. And still they
fear the thing of evil; though for them, 'tis hard to fall. Thus
hoping and thus fearing, then, their's is no state complete. And since
Oro is past finding out, and mysteries ever open into mysteries
beyond; so, though these beings will for a