With Oliver Wendell Holmes comes the last of this brief American list of honor. No other American has so combined delicacy with the New England humor. We should be poorer by many a smile without "My Aunt" and "The Deacon's Masterpiece." But this is not his entire gift. "The Chambered Nautilus" strikes the chord of noble sentiment sounded in the last stanza of "Thanatopsis" and it will continue to sing in our hearts "As the swift seasons roll." There is in his poems the smile and the sigh of the well-loved stanza, "And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the Spring. Let them smile; as I do now; As the old forsaken bough Where I cling." And is this all? Around these few names does all the fragrance of American poetry hover? In the hurry, prosperity, and luxury of modern life is the care if the flower of poetry lost? Surely not. The last half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth have brought many beautiful flowers of poetry and hints of more perfect blossoms. Lanier has sung of the life of the south he loved; Whitman and Miller have stirred us with enthusiasm for the progress of the nation; Field and Riley have made us laugh and cry in sympathy; Aldrich, Sill, Van Dyke, Burroughs, and Thoreau have shared with us their hoard of beauty. Among the present generation may there appear many men and women whose devotion to the delicate flower shall be repaid by the gratitude of posterity! ANNE BRADSTREET CONTEMPLATIONS Some time now past in the Autumnal Tide, When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed, The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride Were gilded o'er by his rich golden head. Their leaves and fruits, seem'd painted, but was true Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hue, Rapt were my senses at this delectable view. I wist not what to wish, yet sure, thought I, If so much excellence abide below, How excellent is He that dwells on high! Whose power and beauty by his works we know; Sure he is goodness, wisdom, glory, light, That hath this underworld so richly dight: More Heaven than Earth was here, no winter and no night. Then on a stately oak I cast mine eye, Whose ruffling top the clouds seem'd to aspire; How long since thou wast in thine infancy? Thy strength, and stature, more thy years admire; Hath hundred winters past since thou wast born, Or thousand since thou breakest thy shell of horn? If so, all these as naught Eternity doth scorn.