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youth realized in his character and his intellectual life during this final period, that when death came in 1882, after a brief period of illness, the people of his own land and those of many other nations as well felt that a great and good man had passed from earth.

One who reads the journal and the letters in which the home life of Longfellow is plainly pictured is impressed perhaps even more than by his poems with the fitness of his title, The Children's Poet. One cannot fail to find, in such words as those in the following extract from a letter, the gentleness of his regard for children: "My little girls are flitting about my study, as blithe as two birds. They are preparing to celebrate the birthday of one of their dolls; and on the table I find this programme, in E.'s handwriting, which I purloin and send to you, thinking it may amuse you. What a beautiful world this child's world is! So instinct with life, so illuminated with imagination! I take infinite delight in seeing it go on around me, and feel all the tenderness of the words that fell from the blessed lips: 'Suffer the little children to come unto me.' After that benediction how can any one dare to deal harshly with a child!" To this loving interest children everywhere have responded. On the poet's seventy-second birthday, about seven hundred children of Cambridge gave him an armchair made of the chestnut-tree celebrated in The Village Blacksmith. A poem was written in answer to the gift, and a copy of this was given to every child who came to visit the poet and sit in his chair. And children did come to visit him in great numbers. On one occasion, in the summer of 1880, the journal records: "Yesterday I had a

visit from two schools: some sixty girls and boys, in all. It seems to give them so much pleasure that it gives me pleasure." The last letter that the poet is known to have written was one addressed to a little girl who had sent him a poem on his seventy-fifth birthday; and only four days before his death he received a visit from four Boston boys in whose albums he placed his autograph.

The strongest claim to the high regard in which Longfellow's poems are held is based on the very qualities that endear him to his child-readers. All his life, even in the midst of affliction and sorrow, he was governed by true, deep kindness for all living things, and by a spirit of helpfulness that is the most beautiful thing expressed in his poetry. Then, too, he was willing always to write simply, that all might be benefited by his pure, high thinking. So consistently and with such power did he put into practice the religion of good will and service to others that his life seems to have been a realization of the desire expressed in Wordsworth's lines:

"And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety."

Some of Longfellow's poems that children like most are named in the following paragraphs:

Perhaps the most interesting for the youngest readers are Paul Revere's Ride and The Wreck of the Hesperus; The Children's Hour, in which the poet tells of the daily play-time with his little girls; and The Village Blacksmith, together with the verses From My Arm-Chair, written when the children gave the chair made from the chestnut tree that had once shaded the Village Blacksmith.

Story-telling poems that children of from ten to twelve years of age can enjoy are: The Happiest Land, The Luck of Edenhall, The Elected Knight, Excelsior, The Phantom Ship, The Discoverer of the North Cape, The Bell of Atri, The Three Kings, The Emperor's Bird's Nest and The Maiden and the Weathercock. The Windmill and the translation Beware are especially lively little poems; and The Arrow and the Song and Children are quite as cheerful though quieter. More serious is The Day Is Done, well liked for the restful melody; The Old Clock on the Stairs, with its curious refrain; and the famous Psalm of Life, the lesson of which has helped many a young boy and girl.

Among the story-poems for children older than twelve years are are Longfellow's greatest works, Evangeline, Hiawatha and The Courtship of Miles Standish; and the minor poems, Elizabeth, The Beleaguered City and The Building of the Ship. Nature poems that appeal to readers of this age are the Hymn to the Night, The Rainy Day, The Evening Star, A Day of Sunshine, The Brook and the Wave, Rain in Summer, and Wanderer's Night Songs.

Children who are fond of imagining will enjoy The Belfry of Bruges and Travels by the Fireside, and those who like song-poems may select The Bridge or Stay, Stay at Home, My Heart.

Nearly all of the poems that have been named are found in collections of Longfellow's works under the titles of the volumes in which they were originally published. A Psalm of Life, for example, is one of the group entitled Voices of the Night; and Paul Revere's Ride is one of the Tales of a Wayside Inn.

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WH

HEN the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,

Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;

The beloved, the true-hearted,

Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished.
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,1
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me

With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.
Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.

O, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only

Such as these have lived and died!

1. This refers to Longfellow's first wife, Mary Storer Potter, whom he married in 1831. On his second visit to Europe, Mrs. Longfellow died at Rotterdam in 1835.

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