THERE IS AN ANCIENT MAN.

THERE is an ancient man, who dwells
Without our parish bounds,

Beyond the poplar avenue,

Across two meadow grounds;

And whensoe'er our two small bells
To church call merrily,

Leaning on our churchyard gate
This old man ye may see.

He is a man of many thoughts,
That long have found their rest
Each in its proper dwelling-place,
Settled within his breast.

A form erect, a stately brow,
A set and measured mien;
The satisfied, unroving look

Of one who much hath seen.

And once, when young, in care of souls,
I watched a rich man's bed,
And willing half, and half ashamed,
Lingered and nothing said,
The ancient man, in accents mild
Removed my shame away.
"Listen, he said: "the minister
Prepares to kneel and pray."

These lines of humble thankfulness
Will never meet his eye;
Unknown that old man means to live,
And unremembered die.

The forms of life have severed us,
But when that life shall end,

Fain would I hail that reverend man

A father and a friend.

THE BURIED FLOWER.

IN the silence of my chamber,
When the night is still and deep,
And the drowsy heave of ocean
Mutters in its charméd sleep,

Oft I hear the angel voices,

That have thrilled me long ago—

Voices of my lost companions,

Lying deep beneath the snow.

- Dean Alford.

Where are now the flowers we tended?
Withered, broken, branch and stem.
Where are now the hopes we cherished?
Scattered to the winds with them.

THE BURIED FLOWER.

For ye, too, were flowers, ye dear ones,
Nursed in hope, and reared in love;
Looking fondly ever upward,

To the clear blue heaven above.

Smiling on the sun that cheered us,
Rising lightly from the rain;
Never folding up your freshness,
Save to give it forth again.

Never shaken, save by accents
From a tongue that was not free,
As the modest blossom trembles
At the wooing of the bee.

Oh! 't is sad to lie and reckon
All the days of faded youth,
All the vows that we believed in,
All the words we spoke in truth.

Severed-were it severed only--
By an idle thought of strife,
Such as time may knit together,
Not the broken chord of life!

O my heart! that once so truly
Kept another's time and tune,
Heart that kindled in the morning,
Look around thee in the noon.

Where are they who gave the impulse
To thy earliest thought and flow?
Look across the ruined garden,--
All are withered, dropped, or low.

Oh! I fling my spirit backwards,
And I pass o'er years of pain:
All I loved is rousing round me,
All the lost returns again.

Brighter, fairer far than living,
With no trace of woe or pain,
Robed in everlasting beauty,

Shall I see them once again?

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