Ah, me, where the Past sowed heart’s-ease,
    The Present plucks rue for us men! 
  I come back:  that scar unhealing
    Was not in the churchyard then.

  But, I think, the house is unaltered;
    I will go and beg to look
  At the rooms that were once familiar
    To my life as its bed to a brook.

  Unaltered!  Alas for the sameness
    That makes the change but more! 
  ’Tis a dead man I see in the mirrors,
    ’Tis his tread that chills the floor!

  To learn such a simple lesson
    Need I go to Paris and Rome,—­
  That the many make a household,
    But only one the home?

  ’Twas just a womanly presence,
    An influence unexprest,—­
  But a rose she had worn on my grave-sod
    Were more than long life with the rest!

  ’Twas a smile, ’twas a garment’s rustle,
    ’Twas nothing that I can phrase,—­
  But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious,
    And put on her looks and ways.

  Were it mine, I would close the shutters,
    Like lids when the life is fled,
  And the funeral fire should wind it,
    This corpse of a home that is dead.

  For it died that autumn morning
    When she, its soul, was borne
  To lie all dark on the hillside
    That looks over woodland and corn.

* * * * *

THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.

[I did not think it probable that I should have a great many more talks with our company, and therefore I was anxious to get as much as I could into every conversation.  That is the reason why you will find some odd, miscellaneous facts here, which I wished to tell at least once, as I should not have a chance to tell them habitually, at our breakfast-table.—­We’re very free and easy, you know; we don’t read what we don’t like.  Our parish is so large, one can’t pretend to preach to all the pews at once.  Besides, one can’t be all the time trying to do the best of one’s best; if a company works a steam fire-engine, the firemen needn’t be straining themselves all day to squirt over the top of the flagstaff.  Let them wash some of those lower-story windows a little.  Besides, there is no use in our quarrelling now, as you will find out when you get through this paper.]

——­Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond to the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels.  I am thinking of travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially in Italy.  Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.  I can prove some facts about travelling by a story or two.  There are certain principles to be assumed,—­such as these:—­He who is carried by horses must deal with rogues.—­To-day’s dinner subtends a larger visual angle than yesterday’s