[citation needed] Channing wrote to Thoreau in a letter: "I see nothing for you on this earth but that field which I once christened 'Briars'; go out upon that, build yourself a hut, and there begin the grand process of devouring yourself alive.

[5] When visiting the Emersons in 1876, the young poet Emma Lazarus met Channing and accompanied him on a tour of some of the places Thoreau had loved, stating in her journal in regard to the friendship between Thoreau and Channing that I do not know whether I was most touched by the thought of the unique, lofty character that had instilled this depth and fervor of friendship, or by the pathetic constancy and pure affection of the poor, desolate old man before me, who tried to conceal his tenderness and sense of irremediable loss by a show of gruffness and philosophy.

And yet a day or two after, when I sat with him in the sunlit wood, looking at the gorgeous blue and silver summer sky, he turned to me and said: "Just half the world died for me when I lost Mr. Thoreau.

[7] ... as age came on and his chosen companions died, he withheld his steps from mount and stream and sea; would not sail his own Concord river, nor thread the woodpaths he once knew as well as the citizen knows his daily street; and died tranquilly at last, within sight of the hills and meadows he had loved to ramble across with Emerson, Hawthorne, or Thoreau, beside whose buried dust his own ashes will rest in the village cemetery.

The stanza written by Channing for such an occasion half a century ago was also read, with a slight change, adapting it to the stately pine trees that surround his burial place, exactly opposite the grave of his friend Hawthorne: O spare from all the luxury A tear for one who may not weep!

Whose heart is like a wintry sea, So still and cold and deep; Nor shed that tear till he is laid Beneath the fresh-dug turf to rest, And o'er his grave the pine-tree's shade That hides the song-bird's nest.

[9] In a later Republican column, Sanborn informs: I have lately come upon the Greek Iambics which I buried with the ashes of Channing in Sleepy Hollow cemetery; and I copy them here in English type, that they may not be wholly lost: Entautha thapto son smikro teuchei spodon, Aoide philtathie, on mele thallousa ze; Kouphe soi chthon epaneuthe pesoi!

[10]Critic Edgar Allan Poe was particularly harsh in reviewing Channing's poetry in a series of articles titled "Our Amateur Poets" published in Graham's Magazine in 1843.

[12]Nathaniel Hawthorne metaphorically appraised Channing's oeuvre as of particularly high quality, if uneven, in the short story "Earth's Holocaust".