To some more secret place!
With mattock and with spade

Ye dare to break my rest;
The pious mound is all unmade
My clan had counted blest:
Take, take, my buckler's boss,
My sword, and spear, and chain,
Steal all ye can of this world's dross,
But rest my bones again!

I know your modern boast

Is light, and learning's spread, Learn of a Celt to show them most, In honor to the Dead!

FARLEY HEATH,

NEAR ALBURY.

MANY a day have I whiled away
Upon hopeful Farley heath,
In its antique soil digging for spoil
Of possible treasure beneath;

For Celts, and querns, and funeral urns,

And rich red Samian ware,

And sculptured stones, and centurion's bones

May all lie buried there!

How calmly serene, and glad have I been

From morn till eve to stay,

My Surrey serfs turning the turfs

The happy live-long day;

With eye still bright, and hope yet alight,

Wistfully watching the mould

As the spade brings up fragments of things Fifteen centuries old!

Pleasant and rare it was to be there

On a joyous day of June,

With the circling scene all gay and green
Steep'd in the silent noon;

When beauty distils from the calm glad hills, -
From the downs and dimpling vales
And every grove, lazy with love,
Whispereth tenderest tales!

O then to look back upon Time's old track,
And dream of the days long past,
When Rome leant here on his sentinel spear,
And loud was the clarion's blast-
As wild and shrill from Martyr's hill
Echoed the patriot shout,

Or rushed pell-mell with a midnight yell
The rude barbarian rout!

Yes; every stone has a tale of its own

A volume of old lore ;

And this white sand from many a brand
Has polished gouts of gore;

When Holmbury-height had its beacon light,
And Cantii held old Leith,

And Rome stood then with his iron men

On ancient Farley heath!

How many a group of that exiled troop
Have here sung songs of home,
Chanting aloud to a wondering crowd

The glories of old Rome!

Or lying at length have bask'd their strength
Amid this heather and gorse,

Or down by the well in the larch-grown dell
Watered the black war-horse!

Look, look! my day-dream right ready would seem The past with the present to join,

For see! I have found in this rare ground
An eloquent green old coin,

With turquoise rust on its Emperor's bust,
Some Cæsar, august Lord;

And the legend terse, and the classic reverse,
Victory, valor's reward! —'

Victory, yes! and happiness,

Kind comrade, to me and to you,

When such rich spoil has crowned our toil
And proved the day-dream true;

With hearty acclaim how we hail'd by his name
The Cæsar of that coin,

And told with a shout his titles out,

And drank his health in wine!

And then how blest the noon-day rest
Reclined on a grassy bank,

With hungry, cheer and the brave old beer
Better than Odin drank ;

And the secret balm of the spirit at calm,
And poetry, hope, and health,

Aye, have I not found in that rare ground
A mine of more than wealth?

WISDOM.

IT is the way we go, the way of life,
A drop of pleasure in a sea of pain,
A grain of peace amid a load of strife,

With toil and grief, and grief and toil again: Yea:- but for this; the firm and faithful breast, Bolder than lion's, confident and strong,

That never doubts its birthright to be blest,
And dreads no evil while it does no wrong:

This, this is wisdom, manful and serene,
Towards God all penitence and prayer and trust,
But to the troubles of this shifting scene

Simply courageous, and sublimely just:

Be then such wisdom thine, my heart within, –
There is no foe nor woe nor grief but-Sin.

THE HEART'S HUSBAND.

FOR MUSIC.

Go, leave me to weep for the years that are past,
For my youth, and its friends, and its pleasures all dead,
My spring and my summer are fading too fast,

And I long to live over the days that are fled;

It is not for sorrows or sins on my track

That I mournfully cast my fond yearnings behind, - Ah, no, from affection I love to look back, It is only my heart that has wedded my Mind.

And still, let the Mind that has married a Heart
Though loving, be strong as a King in his pride,

And ever command that all weakness depart

From the realm that he rules in the soul of his bride; For what, if all time and all pleasures decay?

My Mind is myself, an invincible chief, —

Like a child's broken toys are the years past away,
And my Heart, half-ashamed, has forgotten her grief.

PROPHETS — WHEAT-CORN, AND CHAFF.

315

PROPHETS.

PROPHETS at home, I smile to note your wrongs;
How scantly praised at each ancestral hearth
Are ye, caress'd by million hearts and tongues,
And full of honors over half the earth:

O petty jealousies and paltry strife!

The little minds that chronicle a birth
Stood once for teachers in the task of life;
But, as the child of genius grew apace,
Dismay'd at his gigantic lineaments,
They feared to find his glory their disgrace,
His mind their master: so their worldly aim
Is still to vex him with discouragements,
To check the springtide budding of his fame,
And keep it down to save themselves a name

WHEAT-CORN, AND CHAFF.

My little learning fadeth fast away,

And all the host of words and forms and rules Bred in my teeming youth of books and schools Dwindle to less and lighter; night and day

I dream of tasks undone, and lore forgot,

Seeming some sailor in the "ship of fools,"
Some debtor owing what he cannot pay,
Some conner of old themes remembered not.
Despise such small oblivion; 'tis the lot

Of human life, amid its chance and change
To learn, and then unlearn; to seek and find,
And then to lose familiars grown quite strange:
Store up, store wisdom's corn in heart and mind,
But fling the chaff on every winnowing wind.