A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL. — 255 
Like all discriminating lovers of ‘“ Nature’s blithe 
commoners,” Lowell had _ his favorites, whose 
praises he frequently rung with a sincerity that 
cannot be doubted for a moment. He was espe- 
cially partial to the bobolink. He must have often 
peeped into the 
“’Tussocks that house blithe Bob o’ Lincoln,” 
or his Muse would not have been so adept and 
faithful in her hymning descriptions. We will lend 
a listening ear while she sings her chansons on the 
virtues of the bird our poet loved so truly. First, 
I will call attention to the following portraiture of 
that cavalier of the meadow, the male bobolink, at 
the season when there are bantlings in the grass- 
domed nest which demand his paternal care, as 
well as that of his faithful spouse, — 
“ Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, 
Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 
Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture’s tremulous brink, 
And ’twixt the windrows most demurely drops, 
A decorous bird of business, who provides 
For his brown mate and fledgelings six besides, 
And looks from right to left, a farmer ’mid his crops.” 
One can almost see the poet leaning against the 
rail fence of the clover field, with pencil in hand, 
drawing the portrait of the bird which is posing 
unconsciously before him, so true is his delineation 
of bobolink life. But to find Lowell at his best you 
must read his description of Robert o' Lincoln at 
his best. Hark !— 
