"The old house by the Lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravell'd pathway
The light and shadow play'd."
And it was in this quiet retreat that he passed away in 1882.
We followed the winding road, almost an avenue of willow-trees, to Mount Auburn Cemetery, and with great difficulty found his last resting-place. We were terribly disillusioned. Not a garden of flowers, tended by loving hands; not a simple marble monument with short inscription, prompted by a knowledge of the gentle, retiring, nature; but we found a great, ugly block of sandstone, a huge sarcophagus, with a name and date on one side, and an ingenious pattern on the other, taking X as a centre letter, and forming a senseless device, and utterly inappropriate to the memory of the great poet.
No more beautiful garden than this cemetery could be conceived: grassy slopes, planted with waving palms and the choicest plants; bright flower-beds interspersed among the white marble crosses and memorials of the dead; an air of quiet beauty and repose, mingling with the many signs of respectful care on the different graves, such as bunches of newly-cut flowers. Those who have served their country had a miniature flag of the stars and stripes waving over their heads. The mortuary chapel stands on the high ground, and opposite to it there is a magnificent marble sphinx with this soul-stirring inscription,—
"American Union Preserved,