ioo HELEN ABBOTT MICHAEL ; 



" Though other stars arose and set, 

 For me they flashed no light, 

 I waited for the emerald fire, 

 The beacon of my lonesome night. 



" The years they passing came and went, 

 Fate weaving life and death, 

 With visions fair most sweet were spent 

 The hours, for which alone I 've wept. 



" Then when all hope seemed ebbing fast, 

 My star arose again, 

 I saw it span the jeweled sky, 

 I knew that longing proved not pain. 



"Ah! then I learned what light of star 

 To me must ever bring : 

 A mystic throb of Nature's heart, 

 The magic glow of Spring. 



"My Star" seems a complete answer to one entitled "Sep- 

 aration," written the year previous, just after Christmas, 

 1896: 



" What grief is this that o'er my senses comes? 

 All tears are stilled, 

 My heart's beat lulled. 

 Oh! separation from all that vivifies, 

 The soul's throb now silenced, 

 Music's note is mute. 



" Is ne'er comprehension and full expression to be mine ? 

 Oh! soul, cease with cross-purpose and meanings bewildering, 

 With sentences fraught with half-weighted words. 

 Leave words, forward sense I 



Seek in clasp of hand and eye-glance else denied thee 

 The shining forth of thy soul's true light, 

 And illumination extending to that other soul, . * 

 More loved than thine." 



This spiritual awakening was accompanied by the gradual 

 blossoming of a new purpose in life. All these years her mind 

 had been broadening and becoming more universal in its in- 

 terests, and yet she felt that her early plan of becoming a phy- 



