_For Where Your Treasure Is, There Will Your Heart Be Also._

The miser lay on his lonely bed; Life's candle was burning dim. His heart in an iron chest was hid Under heaps of gold and an iron lid; And whether it were alive or dead It never troubled him.

Slowly out of his body he crept. He said, "I am just the same! Only I want my heart in my breast; I will go and fetch it out of my chest!" Through the dark a darker shadow he leapt, Saying "Hell is a fabled flame!"

He opened the lid. Oh, Hell's own night! His ghost-eyes saw no gold!-- Empty and swept! Not a gleam was there! In goes his hand, but the chest is bare! Ghost-fingers, aha! have only might To close, not to clasp and hold!

But his heart he saw, and he made a clutch At the fungous puff-ball of sin: Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust, He grasped a handful of rotten dust, And shrieked, as ghosts may, at the crumbling touch, But hid it his breast within.

And some there are who see him sit Under the church, apart, Counting out coins and coins of gold Heap by heap on the dank death-mould: Alas poor ghost and his sore lack of wit-- They breed in the dust of his heart!

Another miser has now his chest, And it hoards wealth more and more; Like ferrets his hands go in and out, Burrowing, tossing the gold about-- Nor heed the heart that, gone from his breast, Is the cold heap's bloodless core.

Now wherein differ old ghosts that sit Counting ghost-coins all day From the man who clings with spirit prone To whatever can never be his own? Who will leave the world with not one whit But a heart all eaten away?

THE ASTHMATIC MAN TO THE SATAN THAT BINDS HIM.

Satan, avaunt! Nay, take thine hour, Thou canst not daunt, Thou hast no power; Be welcome to thy nest, Though it be in my breast.

Burrow amain; Dig like a mole; Fill every vein With half-burnt coal; Puff the keen dust about, And all to choke me out.

Fill music's ways With creaking cries, That no loud praise May climb the skies; And on my labouring chest Lay mountains of unrest.

My slumber steep In dreams of haste, That only sleep, No rest, I taste-- With stiflings, rimes of rote, And fingers on my throat.

Satan, thy might I do defy; Live core of night I patient lie: A wind comes up the gray Will blow thee clean away.

Christ's angel, Death, All radiant white, With one cold breath Will scare thee quite, And give my lungs an air As fresh as answered prayer.

So, Satan, do Thy worst with me Until the True Shall set me free, And end what he began, By making me a man.