He was shut out from much that gave him pleasure, but the
spirit which animated the still breathing frame, though waiting and at
times longing for larger opportunity, seemed to us like a loving
sentinel, covering his dear ones as with a shield, and watching over
the needs of humanity. The advance of the colored people, the claims
of the Indians and their wrongs, opportunities for women, statesmen,
and politicians, the private joys and sorrows of those dear to him,
were all present and kept alive, though in the silence of his breast.
The end came, the door opened, while he was staying with the daughter
of an old friend at Hampton Falls, in New Hampshire--that saintly
woman whom we associate with one of the most spiritual and beautiful
of his poems, "A Friend's Burial." After a serious illness in the
winter of 1892 he was almost too frail for any summer journeying; but
with his usual wisdom and instinctive turning of the heart towards old
familiar places, he thought of this hospitable house where he seemed
to gain strength, and where he found much happiness and the quietness
that he loved. His last illness was brief; he was ministered to by
those who stood nearest him. And thus the waves of time passed over
him and swept him from our sight.
It is a pleasure now to recall many a beautiful scene in summer
afternoons, under the trees at Danvers, when his spirit animated the
air and made the landscape shine with a radiance not its own.
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