And hear the bellows roar And catch the burning sparks that fly Underneath the cushion is a brass plate, bearing the following inscription: : ΤΟ THE AUTHOR OF THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH, THIS CHAIR, MADE FROM THE WOOD OF THE SPREADING IS PRESENTED AS AN EXPRESSION OF GRATEFUL REGARD AND VENERATION BY THE CHILDREN OF CAMBRIDGE, WHO, WITH THEIR FRIENDS, JOIN IN THE BEST WISHES AND CONGRATULATIONS ON THIS ANNIVERSARY, FEBRUARY 27, 1879. Mr. Longfellow expressed his thanks in a beautiful poem entitled "From my Armchair." He also ordered that no child who wished to see the chair at his house should be excluded. The tramp of little feet was heard through the house several days. That he not only loved but deeply felt for children is seen in his poem "Weariness" in which he pities the sorrowful years which he knew await many of earth's little children. One of Mr. Longfellow's children was born on the same day that Mrs. Lowell died. Thus arose Longfellow's poem, "The Two Angels," meaning the angel of life and the angel of death, which came to the two houses. Most beautifully he says, in alluding to the visit of the death angel at the couch of Mrs. Lowell, "Two angels issued where but one went in." What is more beautiful than his allusion to a child in his sonnet "Nature"? In the figure of a tired child reluctantly leaving its play to follow its fond mother to bed he sees men and women called to leave their work on earth and to die. Do you not think the sons and daughters of Mr. Longfellow dearly loved their poet-father? On March 24, 1882, the bells of Cambridge tolled seventy-six strokes, when all who heard knew that the beloved poet, the "First Citizen" as the Cambridge people called him, had passed away. Tokens of mourning were exhibited on all houses, and his draped portrait in the shop windows. During a heavy fall of snow he was laid to rest in Mount Auburn Cemetery. Governor Long, who spoke at the public funeral services, said, "May we, like him, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time; may our sadness resemble sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain; may we know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong; may we wake the better soul that slumbers to a holy, calm delight; may we never mistake heaven's distant lamps for sad, funereal tapers, and may we ever hear the voice from the sky like a falling star- Excelsior." How much do the children of the United States owe to this lover of children! FLOWER-DE-LUCE. Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers, Or where the sluggish meadow brook delivers Thou laughest at the mill, the whir and worry And the great wheel that tolls amid the hurry Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance, But makest glad and radiant with thy presence The wind blows and uplifts thy drooping banner, The rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor, The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant, And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent Thou art the Iris fair among the fairest, And winged with the celestial azure bearest Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever ANALYSIS OF "THE FLOWER-DE-LUCE." What schoolboy has not waded out into some marshy meadow to gather an armful of the wild flags, while his sister and the girls have tarried dis creetly on the borders? With what triumph the young forager has returned and submitted his purple booty to the admiring approval of the girls! How generously he has divided the royal spoils amongst them ! What shall the boys and girls do with their flags ? Let them make their home bright with some of them and let them take some to the botany class. Here they will look more closely at the fleshy rootstalk, and will be pleased to learn that the powdered orris root with its odor of violets which they have used for perfume is the root of the Italian wild flag. They will look at the firm, close-set, sword-like leaves, guarding closely the royal purple. They will see three arching petals making a dome over the centre of the flower. They will find three drooping, banner-like sepals, each bearing a tuft of yellow fuzz, designed to catch stray pollen grains. They will see three more petal-like parts which prove to be stigmas of the curious, three-cleft pistil, whose long style they will explore till they reach the little bag of seeds three inches below. How carefully they are wrapped in the same sword-like leaves swords even around their cradles ! Lifting each petal-like stigma, they will find a white stamen. They will trace the path taken by the pollen grains to reach the ovary and will see that because the path is a little uncertain, the flower |