Midsummer Memoranda 



shapely, and he is as graceful and smooth 

 in every movement as a Wood Thrush, 

 and just as self-contained, though much 

 livelier of course. 



Next in this bright, insistent throng 

 of recollections the merry, buff-capped 

 Bobolink presents himself. 



He was always really a stranger to me 

 outside the books until I came across him 

 one peerless morning about the middle 

 of May up in the Raritan river country 

 of New Jersey. Since then, however, he 

 has been an unfading friend. Even as I 

 write I can recall him and his glorious en- 

 vironment that day with vivid distinctness. 



Far out in the open, under the blue of 

 heaven, where snowy cloudships sail in 

 glistening splendor, the broad meadows — 

 supremely luxuriant after the freshening 

 rain of the night — stretch straight away 

 for a mile or more to where the silver 

 ribbon of the winding stream is hid by 

 a fringe of darkling trees. And in every 

 direction they unfold a soul-stirring vista 

 of living green made luminous with gold; 



[139 1 



