WHAT OTHERS SAY. 473 



kinds were singing all at once." Perhaps the old nursery ditty expresses 

 it quite as well. It runs in this wise : 



" Bobolink, 'olink, 'olink, 



One would think so fast you gabble, 



That you never stop to think, 



Bobolink, 'olink, 'olink. 



No one thinks you're any wiser 



Though your tongue keeps running so." 



Whitticr calls the bobolink the 



"Jolliest of our birds of singing." 

 Lowell tells of his love for June, 



"The pearl of the New England year," 



and his feathered friend, in these words: 



" A week ago the sparrow was divine. 

 The bluebird, shifting his light load of song 

 ^'rol'n post to post along the cheerless fence. 

 Was as a rhymer ere the post came. 



The bobolink has come, and like the soul 

 Of the sweet season vocal in a bird, 

 Gurgles in ecstacy we know not what 

 Save June! Dear June! Nozv God be praised 

 for JuneT 



Bryant has written a poem entitled "Robert of Lincoln," so gay and 

 rollicking that we almost hear the merry bird notes in reading those of 

 the poet. The history of the bird's life through an entire summer is 

 given in the poem beginning: 



"Merrily swinging on brier and weed. 

 Near to the nest of his little dame, 

 . Over the mountain side or mead, 



Robert of Lincoln is telling his name." 



Ikit the last stanza begins thus: 



"Summer wanes; the children are grown; 



Fun and frolic no more he knows; 

 Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone." 



The poet tells the truth. The bobolink sings constantly through 

 the months of IVIay and June, when he stops sowing his wild oats and 

 begins life in earnest. The gay bridegroom of the springtime becomes 



