"The mild historian of the Sudbury Inn,"
Longfellow. The old tavern at Sudbury was the scene of "The Tales of a Wayside Inn." Parsons was the original of the Poet in that volume, and his brother-in-law, Luigi Monti, of the Sicilian, to whom allusion is also made in this stanza.
[STANZA XXXIV.]
... "as once at Cedarcroft."
The home of Bayard Taylor, between whom and Lanier an intimate bond of friendship existed.
[STANZA XXXV.]
"But who is this, that from the mightier shades Emerges,"
Dante.
... "now, of lineament
Not stern but strenuous still,"
refers to Parsons's lines;