The noble marble
group of buildings of the School of Medicine of Harvard are very
impressive. As we crossed the river, we thought how often our
beloved Longfellow had looked on its peaceful tide from his
charming home in Cambridge. The view from his home is still
unobstructed, and it speaks of the veneration in which he is
held by the people of the city. It was while living at Cambridge
that he wrote his Ode to the Charles river, given below:
River, that in silence windest
Through the meadows bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea.
Four long years of mingled feeling
Half in rest, and half in strife,
I have seen thy waters stealing
Onward, like the stream of life.
Thou hast taught me, Silent River,
Many a lesson, deep and long.
Thou hast been a generous river;
I can give thee but a song.
Oft in sadness and in illness,
I have watched thy current glide,
Till the beauty of its stillness
Overflowed me like a tide.
And in better hours and brighter,
When I saw thy waters gleam,
I have felt my heart beat lighter,
And leap upward with thy stream.
Not for this alone I love thee,
Nor because thy waves of blue
From celestial seas above thee
Take their own celestial hue.
Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee,
And thy waters disappear,
Friends I love have dwelt beside thee,
And have made thy margin clear.
We paused in front of the old homestead to take a picture of it.
But it mattered little about the picture, for what pictures of
rarest beauty he has left us, always speaking to our hearts
messages of sympathy and love! Even as the years pass,
Longfellow is still the universal poet, and it was with pleasure
we recalled how the Belgian children in the King Leopold school
of the city of Antwerp were acquainted with his more familiar
poems. He is better known among foreigners than any one except
their own poets.
We next paid a visit to the home of James Russell Lowell, that
other sweet singer and nature lover of Cambridge. As we gazed
upon the many venerable trees that drooped their graceful
branches over the old homesteads, we did not wonder that the
people of New England became alarmed when the ravages of the
gypsy moth threatened the trees. At Elmwood we saw the efforts
the people had made to preserve them. The stately trees had been
severely pruned and their trunks wore black girdles of a sticky
substance to ensnare the female moths. The foliage had been
sprayed.
