his headquarters on taking command after Bunker Hill; and here Everett the silver-tongued orator, and Jared Sparks the historian, had dwelt before him.

Longfellow was always a great favorite with the English people. On him alone of all Americans they have conferred the honors of Westminster Abbey, beneath whose “sun-gilt pinnacles" English hands have placed a bust of the poet, a memorial and a tribute from English hearts.

Nearly all Longfellow's prose was written in early days, and it is not voluminous. It is to his poetry that his fame is due.

There are five poems of considerable length: The Spanish Student, a poem in dramatic form; The Song of Hiawatha, a legend of the American Indians; The Courtship of Miles Standish, a tale of the early Massachusetts settlement, in which John Alden, the poet's ancestor, figures conspicuously; The Golden Legend, a poem whose scene is laid in the Middle Ages; and Evangeline, the most celebrated of his longer poems. The two poems Keramos and The Hanging of the Crane were written late in life.

In the great treasury which comprises the remainder of his verse a few of the more familiar poems are, The Psalm of Life, The Rainy Day, Resignation, The Beleaguered City, Footsteps of Angels, Paul Revere's Ride, The Day is Done, The Two Angels, The Children's Hour, and The Reaper and the Flowers.

Numerous pictures have made us all familiar with the fine features and thoughtful yet tender looks of Longfellow. He was of the middle height; his carriage

was erect and noble, his eye clear and expressive, revealing a great and sympathetic soul, his whole presence impressive and attractive.

The following description by Mr. Winter is pleasing and picturesque :

"His natural dignity and grace, and the beautiful refinement of his countenance, together with his perfect taste in dress, and the exquisite simplicity of his manners, made him the absolute ideal of what a poet should be. His voice, too, was soft, sweet, and musical; and, like his face, it had the innate charm of tranquillity. His eyes were bluish gray, very bright and brave, changeable under the influence of emotion, but mostly grave, attentive, and gentle. The habitual expression of his face may be described as that of serious and tender thoughtfulness."

In his manner he was simple, unaffected, and gracious. As many of his poems attest, he was a rare lover of children. Indeed, the same genial humanity which illuminated his verse shone through all his dealings with men.

It has been well said of Longfellow, that he delivers "the gospel of good-will, set to music." He teaches the lesson of endurance, patience, and cheerfulness. He appeals to the universal affections of humanity, and expresses with the most delicate beauty thoughts which find sympathy in all minds. He idealizes real life, beautifies common things, and clothes subtle and delicate thoughts in familiar imagery.

His artistic sense is exquisite, so much so that each of his poems is a valuable literary study. He had a

great command of beautiful diction, and equal skill in the structure of his verse. And over all that he wrote there hangs a beautiful ideal light,-the atmosphere of poetry, which illumines his page as the sunshine does the natural landscape.

LOWELL'S TRIBUTE TO LONGFELLOW.

[Written on Longfellow's seventieth birthday.]

I NEED not praise the sweetness of his song,
Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds
Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong
The new-moon's mirrored skiff, he slides along,
Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds.

With loving breath of all the winds his name
Is blown about the world; but to his friends
A sweeter secret hides behind his fame,

And Love steals shyly through the loud acclaim
To murmur a God bless you! and there ends.

As I muse backward up the checkered years
Wherein so much was given, so much was lost,
Blessings in both kinds, such as cheapen tears —
But hush! this is not for profaner ears;
Let them drink molten pearls, nor dream the cost.

Some suck up poison from a sorrow's core,
As naught but nightshade grew upon earth's ground:
Love turned all his to heart's-ease, and the more
Fate tried his bastions, she found but a door
Leading to sweeter manhood and more sound.

Even as a wind-waved fountain's swaying shade
Seems of mixed race, a gray wraith shot with sun,
So through his trial faith translucent rayed
Till darkness, half disnatured so, betrayed
A heart of sunshine that would fain o'errun.

Surely, if skill in song the shears may stay,
And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss,
If our poor life be lengthened by a lay,
He shall not go, although his presence may;
And the next age in praise shall double this.

Long days be his, and each as lusty-sweet
As gracious natures find his song to be;
May Age steal on with softly cadenced feet
Falling in music, as for him were meet
Whose choicest verse is not so rare as he!

1. FROM MY ARM-CHAIR.

[This poem, deeply interesting to the pupils of our schools, was inscribed by the author "to the children of Cambridge (Mass.), who presented to me, on my seventy-second birthday, Feb. 27, 1879, this chair made from the wood of the Village Blacksmith's tree." This famous chestnut-tree stood in front of and overshadowed the smithy in Brattle Street, Cambridge, not far from the house in which Longfellow lived and died.]

Am I a king, that I should call my own
This splendid ebon throne?1

1 ebon throne. In allusion to a "Night, sable goddess, from her ebon line in Young's Night Thoughts, throne," etc.

Or by what reason, or what right divine,1
Can I proclaim it mine?

Only, perhaps, by right divine of song
It may to me belong;

Only because the spreading chestnut tree
Of old was sung by me.

Well I remember it in all its prime,2
When in the summer-time

The affluent foliage of its branches made
A cavern of cool shade.4

There, by the blacksmith's forge, beside the street,
Its blossoms white and sweet

Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive,

And murmured like a hive.

And when the winds of autumn, with a shout,
Tossed its great arms about,

The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath,
Dropped to the ground beneath.

And now some fragments of its branches bare,
Shaped as a stately chair,

Have by my hearthstone found a home at last,
And whisper5 of the past.

1 right divine. An allusion to the expression, "divine right of kings."

2 prime (Latin primus, first), early vigor and beauty.

3 affluent, abundant.

4

cavern

shade. What is

the figure of speech?

5 whisper. What is the figure of speech?