In 1888 a final collection of poems was published, entitled
_Heartsease and Rue_, which opened with the memorial poem, _Agassiz_,
an elegy that would not be too highly honored by being bound in a
golden volume with _Lycidas_, _Adonais_ and _Thyrsis_. Going back to
his earliest literary studies, he again (1887) lectured at the Lowell
Institute on the old dramatists, Occasionally he gave a poem to the
magazines and a collection of these _Last Poems_ was made in 1895 by
Professor Norton. During these years were written many of the charming
_Letters_ to personal friends, which rank with the finest literary
letters ever printed and must always be regarded as an important part
of his prose works.

It was a gracious boon of providence that Lowell was permitted to
spend his last years at Elmwood, with his daughter, Mrs. Burnett, and
his grandchildren. There again, as in the early days, he watched the
orioles building their nests and listened to the tricksy catbird's
call. To an English friend he writes: "I watch the moon rise behind
the same trees through which I first saw it seventy years ago and have
a strange feeling of permanence, as if I should watch it seventy years
longer." In the old library by the familiar fireplace he sat, when the
shadows were playing among his beloved books, communing with the
beautiful past. What unwritten poems of pathos and sweetness may have
ministered to his great soul we cannot know. In 1890 a fatal disease
came upon him, and after long and heroic endurance of pain he died,
August 12, 1891, and under the trees of Mt. Auburn he rests, as in
life still near his great neighbor Longfellow. In a memorial poem
Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke for the thousands who mourned:

"Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade,
Poet and patriot, every gift was thine;