"The Wayside Inn,
Where toil should cease and rest begin,"
and to feel that the approach of old age without the beloved companionship was hard indeed to contemplate. But his children were beautiful and promising and affectionate, and he a most loving and conscientious father; so they gradually came to occupy his thoughts and much to cheer his solitude. He was a famous man too by this time, indeed long before; and the world made demands upon him which could not always be disregarded, and he began to mingle with it somewhat again. But the little group of friends to whom allusion has been made were his best comforters, and were more and more prized as the years went on. During the translation of Dante they assembled at very short intervals to listen to the reading of the work, and to criticise, and suggest such changes as were deemed advisable; and these occasions were much enjoyed. As the years went by, one after another of the early friends fell by the way, leaving gaps in his life which could never be filled. Felton was the first to go, and he was very deeply mourned by Longfellow, who felt "as if the world were reeling and sinking under his feet." His death made, as his friend expressed it, "a chasm which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up." Hawthorne and Agassiz followed soon after Felton; and later Charles Sumner, most deeply mourned of all. He said, in allusion to these friends, in one of his most beautiful sonnets:—
"I also wait! but they will come no more,
Those friends of mine, whose presence satisfied
The thirst and hunger of my heart. Ah me!
They have forgotten the pathway to my door!
Something is gone from Nature since they died,
And summer is not summer, nor can be."
Mr. Longfellow made a final visit to Europe in 1868, accompanied by his children, two sisters, and a brother, and his brother-in-law Thomas Appleton. This journey was much enjoyed by all, although Mr. Longfellow was not a very good sight-seer, and impatient of delays. The remainder of his life passed placidly at his old home, and he died at the age of seventy-five, in the midst of his family and friends. Upon his coffin they placed a palm-branch and a spray of passion-flower,—symbols of victory and the glory of suffering; and he was buried at Mount Auburn, beside her he had so long mourned. What his work was we may tell in the eloquent words of his brother poet and most appreciative critic, Mr. Stedman:—
"His song was a household service, the ritual of our feastings and mournings; and often it rehearsed for us the tales of many lands, or, best of all, the legends of our own. I see him, a silver-haired minstrel, touching melodious keys, playing and singing in the twilight, within sound of the rote of the sea. There he lingers late; the curfew-bell has tolled and the darkness closes round, till at last that tender voice is silent, and he softly moves unto his rest."
