CHILD of New England, and trained by her best influences; of a temperament singularly sweet and serene, and with the sturdy rectitude of his race; refined and softened by wide contact with other lands and many men; born in prosperity, accomplished in all literatures, and himself a literary artist of consummate elegance, he was the fine flower of the Puritan stock under its changed modern conditions. Out of strength had come forth sweetness. The grim iconoclast, "humming a surly hymn," had issued in the Christian gentle

man.

In no other conspicuous figure in literary history are the man and the poet more indissolubly blended than in Longfellow. The poet was the man, and the man the poet. he was to the stranger reading in distant lands, by

"The long wash of Australasian seas,"

What

His life and

There is no

that he was to the most intimate of his friends. character were perfectly reflected in his books. purity, or grace, or feeling, or spotless charm in his verse which did not belong to the man. There was never an explanation to be offered for him; no allowance was necessary for the eccentricity, or grotesqueness, or wilfulness, or humor of genius. Simple, modest, frank, manly, he was the good citizen, the self-respecting gentleman, the symmetrical man.

He lived in an interesting historic house in a venerable university town, itself the suburb of a great city; the high

way running by his gate and dividing the smooth grass and modest green terraces about the house from the fields and meadows that sloped gently to the placid Charles, and the low range of distant hills that made the horizon. Through the little gate passed an endless procession of pilgrims of every degree and from every country, to pay homage to their American friend. Every morning came the letters of those who could not come in person, and with infinite urbanity and sympathy and patience the master of the house received them all, and his gracious hospitality but deepened the admiration and affection of the guests. His nearer friends sometimes remonstrated at his sweet courtesy to such annoying "devastators of the day." But to an urgent complaint of his endless favor to a flagrant offender, Longfellow only answered, goodhumoredly, "If I did not speak kindly to him, there is not a man in the world who would." On the day that he was taken ill, six days only before his death, three school-boys came out from Boston on their Saturday holiday to ask his autograph. The benign lover of children welcomed them heartily, showed them a hundred interesting objects in his house, then wrote his name for them, and for the last time.

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON

COLLEGE.

Thomas Gray.

YE distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores

Her Henry's holy Shade;

And ye, that from the stately brow

Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,

Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way:

Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,

Ah, fields belov'd in vain,

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,

A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye blow

A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing,

My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green

The paths of pleasure trace,

Who foremost now delight to cleave,
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?

The captive linnet which enthrall?
What idle progeny succeed

To chase the rolling circle's speed,

Or urge the flying ball?

While some on urgent business bent

Their murm'ring labors ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty;

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever-new,
And lively cheer of vigor born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.

Alas, regardless of their doom
The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:

Yet see, how all around 'em wait

The Ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, shew them where in ambush stand To seize their prey the murd'rous band! Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,

Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;

Or pining Love shall waste their youth,

Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tears it forc'd to flow;
And keen Remorse, with blood defil'd,
And moody Madness, laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their Queen:

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every laboring sinew strains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff'rings: all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan,

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate?

Since sorrow never comes too late,