o, walking in the twilight gloom,
Hears round about him voices as it darkens,
And seeing not the forms from which they come,
Pauses from time to time, and turns and hearkens;

"So walking here in twilight, O my friends!
I hear your voices, softened by the distance,
And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends
His words of friendship, comfort, and assistance.

"Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown!
Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token,
That teaches me, when seeming most alone,
Friends are around us, though no word be spoken."

In another age or country Longfellow would have been laurelled,
medalled, or ennobled; but he has had what his essentially republican
spirit doubtless preferred, the simple homage of a nation's heart. He
had his share of foreign honors; and these did not come from Oxford and
Cambridge only, since in 1873 he was chosen a member of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, and in 1877 of the Spanish Academy. At home he was
the honored member of every literary club or association to which he
cared to belong. In the half-rural city where he spent his maturer
life--that which he himself described in "Hyperion" as "this leafy
blossoming, and beautiful Cambridge"--he held a position of as
unquestioned honor and reverence as that of Goethe at Weimar or Jean
Paul at Baireuth. This was the more remarkable, as he rarely attended
public meetings, seldom volunteered counsel or action, and was not seen
very much in public. But his weight was always thrown on the right side;
he took an unfeigned interest in public matters, always faithful to the
traditions of his friend Sumner; and his purse was always easily opened
for all good works. On one occasion there was something like a collision
of opinion between him and the city government, when it was thought
necessary for the widening of Brattle Street to remove the "spreading
chestnut-tree" that once stood before the smithy of the village
blacksmith, Dexter Pratt. The poet earnestly expostulated; the tree
fell, nevertheless; but by one of those happy thoughts which sometimes
break the monotony of municipal annals, it was proposed to the city
fathers that the children of the public schools should be invited to
build out of its wood, by their small subscriptions, a great armchair
for the poet's study. The unexpected gift, from such a source, salved
the offence, but it brought with it a penalty to Mr. Longfellow's
househo