inking
of him. He knew the glory of modest living.

The last time I saw the sweet Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier,
was in Amesbury, before he died. He sent a note to the lecture hall
asking me to come to come to him. I asked him what was his favorite
poem of his own writing. He said he had not thought very much about
it, but said that there was one that he especially remembered:

"I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air,
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care."

I then asked him, "Mr. Whittier, how could you write all those war
songs which sent us young men to war, and you a peaceful Quaker? I
cannot understand it." He smiled and said that his great-grandfather had
been on a ship that was attacked by pirates, and as one of the pirates
was climbing up the rope into their ship, his great-grandfather
grasped a knife and cut the rope, saying: "If thee wants the rope,
thee can have it." He said that he had inherited something of the same
spirit.

At Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, Bayard Taylor took me to the grave of
his wife, and said "Here is the spot where I determined to live anew.
From this grave the real experiences of my life began." There he was
completing his home called "Cedar Croft." But he died while U.S.
Minister to Germany. The Young Men's Congress of Boston, when
arranging for a great memorial service in Tremont Temple, asked me to
call on Dr. Oliver Wendel Holmes to ask him to write a poem on Bayard
Taylor's death. When I asked Mr. Holmes to write this poem, to be read
in the Tremont Temple, he was sitting on the rocking chair. He rocked
back and kicked up his feet, and began to laugh. "I write a poem on
Bayard Taylor--ah, no--but I tell you, if you will get Mr. Longfellow
to write a poem on Bayard Taylor's death, I will read it." These
things only show the eccentricities of Mr. Holmes. So I went to Mr.
Longfellow and told him what Dr. Holmes had said, and here is the poem
he wrote:

"Dead he lay among his books!
The peace of God was in his looks.
As the statues in the gloom
Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb,
So those volumes from their shelve.
Watched him, silent as themselves.
Ah, his hand will never more
Turn their storied pages o'er.
Never more his lips repeat
Songs of theirs, however sweet.
Let the lifeless body rest!
He is gone who was its guest.
Gone as travellers haste to leave
An inn, nor tarry until eve.

"