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There is a world of thought suggested by the words, "Forgot my morning wishes," of the hopes, plans, purposes for better things, which so often fade away as life goes on. The contrast between what we might get out of life and what we do is given in the "diadems and fagots offered," the glory and the consecration of self-sacrifice possible, and the few "herbs and apples," the material pleasures so often preferred. The pause in the last line but oneand the Day

Turned and departed silent –

prepares for the conclusion,

I, too late,

Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

Perhaps the simplest, and at the same time the fullest, expression in brief form of Emerson's message to his generation, is in the often-quoted lines from "Voluntaries":

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When Duty whispers low, Thou must,

The youth replies, I can.

These lines express the high possibilities of human nature, realized through the fact of the nearness of man to God. A special interest is given to them by the circumstance related in connection with the dedication of the memorial to Colonel Robert G. Shaw, that they were occasioned by his acceptance of the command of the Fifty-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts troops.

Of the longer poems, "The Problem," "Wood

The Cam

bridge Group.

notes," and "May Day," are among the most" acces-
sible," so to speak, for the student. "The World
Soul" and "Initial, Dæmonic, and Celestial Love"
are among the most difficult. The most difficult will
well repay study, and abound in passages which are
suggestive and intelligible to any one. Thus from
the close of "The World Soul":

Spring still makes spring in the mind,
When sixty years are told;

Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,

And we are never old.

Over the winter glaciers,

I see the summer glow,

And, through the wild-piled snowdrift,
The warm rose-buds below.

Leaving the consideration of Emerson's "Essays," and of the other writers who with him constitute the "Concord" literary group, for the present, we pass to the neighboring town of Cambridge, and begin the study of the remarkable group of poets connected with it during this period.

Harvard College, the first established institution of collegiate training in this country, was also a leader in the University movement, spoken of in the preceding chapter. Thus it became an increasingly important centre of thought and culture, and naturally gathered about it a company of scholars and writers, among whom three poets stand out preeminent. They are Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell. They were not all born in Cambridge, nor did they all live there all their lives; but they are

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closely associated with the town in a variety of ways, and are properly grouped together as "The Cambridge Poets."

Wendell

sachusetts,

He 1894.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was the child of the pastor Oliver of the old Cambridge Congregational Church. He Holmes, was graduated from Harvard in the class of 1829; born in Masand has introduced many of his readers to this class 1809; died, by the many references to it in his poems. studied medicine in Paris, and held the professorship of anatomy and physiology, first at Dartmouth, and afterwards, for the greater part of his life, at Harvard. For most, if not all, this later period his residence was in Boston. He was always known as Dr. Holmes; and not only performed the duties of his professorship enthusiastically, but published a number of scientific medical essays and volumes. Certain lines of thought, due to his medical studies, run through all his works. Few men have shown. such versatile talents as has Holmes. His three novels are among the brightest, most cleverly written stories by any American author. His "Autocrat" series of essays holds a yet higher place; and probably "The Autocrat" itself will hold first rank in American works of its kind, if, indeed, there are any other of its kind.

As a poet, in which character we study him now, he combines humor and pathos as does no other American, and in some of his poems unites, to a remarkable degree, strong and suggestive thought with delicate beauty of expression.

His life was quiet and uneventful. His home

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