"De mortuis nil nisi bonum." When For me this end has come and I am dead, And the little voluble, chattering daws of men Peck at me curiously, let it then be said By some one brave enough to speak the truth: Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong. Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song, And speech that rushed up hotly from the heart, He wrought for liberty, till his own wound (He had been stabbed), concealed with painful art Through wasting years, mastered him, and he swooned, And sank there where you see him lying now With the word "Failure" written on his brow. But say that he succeeded. If he missed World's honors, and world's plaudits, and the wage Of the world's deft lacqueys, still his lips were kissed Daily by those high angels who assuage The thirstings of the poets--for he was Born unto singing--and a burthen lay Mightily on him, and he moaned because He could not rightly utter to the day What God taught in the night. Sometimes, nathless, Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame, And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress; And benedictions from black pits of shame, And little children's love, and old men's prayers, And a Great Hand that led him unawares. So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred With big films--silence! he is in his grave. Greatly he suffered; greatly, too, he erred; Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave. Nor did he wait till Freedom had become The popular shibboleth of courtier's lips; He smote for her when God Himself seemed dumb And all His arching skies were in eclipse. He was a-weary, but he fought his fight, And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed To see the august broadening of the light And new earths heaving heavenward from the void. He loved his fellows, and their love was sweet-- Plant daisies at his head and at his feet. Uckfield's main street is divided sharply into two periods--from the station to the road leading to the church all is new; beyond, all is old. The town is not interesting in itself, but it commands good country, and has a good inn, the Maiden's Head. It is also a good specimen of the quieter market-town of the past--with a brewery (hiding behind a wonderful tree braced with kindly iron bands), a water mill (down by the railway), and several solid comfortable houses for the doctor and the lawyer and the brewer and the parson, with ample gardens behind them.