110 NATURE AND THE POETS. 



essay, yet one does not like to feel that he was 

 obliged to ignore or sacrifice any part of the truth to 

 build up his verse. One likes to see him keep within 

 the fact without being conscious of it or hampered 

 by it, as he does in " The Planting of the Apple- 

 tree," or in the " Lines to a Water-fowl." 



But there are glimpses of American scenery and 

 climate in Bryant that are unmistakable, as in these 

 lines from " Midsummer " : 



"Look forth upon the earth her thousand plants 

 Are smitten ; even the dark, sun-lovLng maize 

 Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze ; 

 The herd beside the shaded fountain pants; 

 For life is driven from all the landscape brown; 

 .The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den, 

 The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men 

 Drop by the sunstroke in the populous town." 



Here is a touch of our " heated term " when the dog- 

 star is abroad and the weather runs mad. I regret 

 the "trout floating dead in the hot stream," because, 

 if such a thing ever has occurred it is entirely excep- 

 tional. The trout in such weather seek the deep 

 water and the spring holes, and hide beneath rocks 

 and willow banks. The following lines would be 

 impossible in an English poem : 



"The snow-bird twittered on the beechen bough, 

 And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent 

 Beneath its bright, cold burden, and kept dry 

 A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves, 

 The partridge found a shelter." 



Both Bryant and Longfellow put their spring blue- 

 bird in the elm, which is a much better place for the 



