What passing generations fill these halls, What passing voices echo from these walls,

1 In October, 1874, Mr. Longfellow was urged to write a poem for the fiftieth anniversary of the graduation of his college class, to be held the next summer. At first he said that he could not write the poem, so averse was he from occasional poems, but a sudden thought seems to have struck him, very likely upon seeing a representation of Gerome's famous picture, and ten days later he notes in his diary that he had finished the writing.

The painting by Gerome, referred to, represents a Roman arena, where the gladiators, about to engage in mortal combat, salute the emperor, who with a great concourse of people is to witness the scene. Beneath

the painting, Gerome, following a popular tradition, wrote the words, Ave Caesar, Imperator, Morituri te Salutant: Hail, Cæsar, Emperor those who go to their death salute thee.' The reference to a gladiatorial combat, which these words imply, is doubted by some scholars, who quote ancient authors as using the phrase in connection with the great sea-fight exhibition given by the emperor on Lacus Fucinus. The combatants on that occasion were condemned criminals, who were to fight until one of the sides was slain, unless spared by the mercy of the emperor. (Riverside Literature Series.)

Compare Emerson's 'Terminus,' Holmes's 'The Iron Gate,' Whittier's To Oliver Wendell Holmes,' etc.

To-day we make the poet's words our own,
And utter them in plaintive undertone;
Nor to the living only be they said,
But to the other living called the dead,
Whose dear, paternal images appear
Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sun-
shine here;

Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw,

50

Were part and parcel of great Nature's law;

Who said not to their Lord, as if afraid,
'Here is thy talent in a napkin laid,'
But labored in their sphere, as men who
live

In the delight that work alone can give.
Peace be to them; eternal peace and rest,
And the fulfilment of the great behest:
'Ye have been faithful over a few things,
Over ten cities shall ye reign as kings.'

2 Dante to Brunetto Latini. Inferno, Canto XV, lines 82-87.

fight,

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Chirping like grasshoppers in their delight To see the embattled hosts, with spear and shield,

Of Trojans and Achaians in the field;

So from the snowy summits of our years
We see you in the plain, as each appears,
And question of you; asking, 'Who is he
That towers above the others? Which
may be

Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus,
Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus ?'

Let him not boast who puts his armor on 90
As he who puts it off, the battle done.
Study yourselves; and most of all note
well

Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.
Not every blossom ripens into fruit;
Minerva, the inventress of the flute,
Flung it aside, when she her face sur-

veyed

Distorted in a fountain as she played;
The unlucky Marsyas found it, and his

fate

Was one to make the bravest hesitate.

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,

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'Be bold! be bold !' and everywhere, 'Be bold;

Be not too bold!' Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.

And now, my classmates; ye remaining few
That number not the half of those we knew,
Ye, against whose familiar names not yet
The fatal asterisk of death is set,
Ye I salute! The horologe of Time
Strikes the half-century with a solemn
chime,

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And summons us together once again,
The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.

Where are the others? Voices from the
deep
Caverns of darkness answer me: They
sleep!'

I name no names; instinctively I feel
Each at some well-remembered grave will

kneel,

Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed

The meaning that these words but half expressed, Until a learned clerk who at noonday With downcast eyes was passing on his way,

Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well,

Whereon the shadow of the finger fell; And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found

A secret stairway leading underground.
Down this he passed into a spacious hall, 190
Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall;
And opposite, in threatening attitude,
With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood.
Upon its forehead, like a coronet,

Were these mysterious words of menace

say

The night hath come; it is no longer day? The night hath not yet come; we are not quite

Cut off from labor by the failing light; Something remains for us to do or dare; Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear; Not Edipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,

Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn, 280 But other something, would we but begin; For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

IN THE CHURCHYARD AT TARRYTOWN1

HERE lies the gentle humorist, who died
In the bright Indian Summer of his fame!
A simple stone, with but a date and name,
Marks his secluded resting-place beside
The river that he loved and glorified.
Here in the autumn of his days he came,
But the dry leaves of life were all aflame
With tints that brightened and were multi-
plied.

How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.

1876.

THE POETS

1877.

O YE dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and
red

From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,

Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
Have something in them so divinely sweet,
It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
(1878.)

1876.

NATURE

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the
floor,

Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,

1 The burial-place of Washington Irving. On Longfellow's great admiration for Irving, see the Life, vol i, p. 12.