1 The last of the poems written for the class of '29. See the letter from Samuel May to F. J. Garrison, quoted in Morse's Life of Holmes, vol. i, p. 78: "* After the Curfew" was positively the last. "Farewell! I let the curtain fall." The curtain never rose again for 29." We met once more a year later at Parker's. But three were present, Smith, Holmes, and myself. No poem very quiet-something very like tears. The following meetings-all at Dr. H.'s house - were quiet, social, talking meetings- the Doctor of course doing the live talking. . . . At one of these meetings four were present, all the survivors but one; and there was more general talk. But never another Class Poem.'

This poem, and the three following, appeared in Over the Teacups.

2 The personal reference is to our greatly beloved and honored classmate, James Freeman Clarke. (HOLMES.)

1 Look here! There are crowds of people whirled through our streets on these new-fashioned cars, with their witch-broomsticks overhead, if they don't come from Salem, they ought to, and not more than one in a dozen of these fish-eyed bipeds thinks or cares a nickel's worth about the miracle which is wrought for their convenience. They know that without hands or feet, without horses, without steam, so far as they can see, they are transported from place to place, and that there is nothing to account for it except the witchbroomstick and the iron or copper cobweb which they see stretched above them. What do they know or care about this last revelation of the omnipresent spirit of the material universe? We ought to go down on our knees when one of these mighty caravans, car after ear, spins by us, under the mystic impulse which seems to know not whether its train is loaded or empty. (HOLMES, in Over the Teacups.) The first electric trolley-cars had just been introduced when this poem was written, in 1890.