Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 2

Sumner's home was always in the city. Rural life he knew only as traveller or visitor. He never even rented a cottage in the suburbs or by the seashore. But with Longfellow's home, more than with any other spot where Nature is a part of the scene, he is associated. Between these two friends there was never any difference or reserve. As they were when first they came to know and love each other, so they remained to the end. Craigie House is a half-hour's drive from Boston, fronting the road which leads from the College to Mount Auburn, shaded by ancient elms, and looking out on a broad meadow and the winding Charles, with the Brighton hills closing the view. Many a Harvard student now recalls Sumner, as he alighted from the coach, strode along the familiar way, and opened his friend's gate,—his stately presence and quick movement attracting the eye whether one knew him or not. Here, for thirty-seven years, both before and after his friend had gathered wife and children about him, he was an ever-welcome guest. Thither he went to talk of books, of scholars, of friends, of common studies. Here he sought rest from the weariness of political strifes,—the solace he craved when he met coldness and injustice elsewhere. The poet has associated him with the scene in an elegiac tribute, which commemorates also two other friends, Agassiz and Felton:—

When I remember them, those friends of mine,
     Who are no longer here, the noble three,
Who half my life were more than friends to me,
     And whose discourse was like a generous wine,
I most of all remember the divine
     Something, that shone in them, and made us see
The archetypal man, and what might be
     The amplitude of Nature's first design.

River, that stealest with such silent pace
     Around the City of the Dead, where lies
A friend who bore thy name, and whom these eyes
     Shall see no more in his accustomed place,
Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace
     And say good-night, for now the western skies
Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise
     Like damps that gather on a dead man's face.
Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said
     Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days