ng by their form, whiteness, and
serene motion, despite the season, flotillas of icebergs upon Arctic
seas. Like Lazzaroni we basked in the quiet noons, sunk into the depths
of reverie, or perhaps of yet more "charmed sleep". Or we smoked,
conversing lazily between the puffs,

"Next to some pine whose antique roots just peeped
From out the crumbling bases of the sand."

But the evenings, with their gorgeous sunsets "rolling down like a
chorus" and the "gray-eyed melancholy gloaming", were the favorite
hours of the day with him. He would often apostrophize twilight in the
language of Wordsworth's sonnet:--

"Hail, twilight! sovereign of one peaceful hour!
Not dull art thou as undiscerning night;
But only studious to remove from sight
Day's mutable distinctions."

"Yes," said he, "she is indeed sovereign of _ONE PEACEFUL HOUR!_ In the
hardest, busiest time one feels the calm, merciful-minded queen stealing
upon one in the fading light, and 'whispering', as Ford has it (or is it
Fletcher?),--'_WHISPERING_ tranquillity'."

When in-doors and disposed to read, he took much pleasure in perusing
the poems of Robert Buchanan and Miss Ingelow. The latter's "Ballads"
particularly delighted him. One, written "in the old English manner",
he quickly learned by heart, repeating it with a relish and fervor
indescribable.

Here is the opening stanza:--

"Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, the owlet hoot;
Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim behind the tree, O!
The dropping thorn makes white the grass, O! sweetest lass,
and sweetest lass
Come out and smell the ricks of hay adown the croft with me, O!"

With but a slight effort of memory I can vividly recall his voice and
manner in repeating these simple yet beautiful lines.

They were the last verses I ever heard from the poet's lips.

Just as the woods were assuming their first delicate autumnal tints,
Timrod took his leave of us. In a conversation on the night but one
previous to his departure, we had been speaking of Dr. Parr and other
literary persons of unusual age, when he observed: "I haven't the
slightest desire, P----, to be an octogenarian, far less a centenarian,
like old Parr; but I hope that I may be spared until I am _FIFTY_ or
fifty-five."

"About Shakespeare's age," I suggested.

"Oh!" he replied, smiling, "I was not thinking of _THAT_; but I'm sure
that after fifty-five I would b