112 NATURE AND THE POETS. 



which would leave him no room to describe the lark, 

 if the lark had been about. Bryant comes nearer the 

 mark this time : 



" There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, 

 And the gossip of swallows through all the sky ; " 



BO does Tennyson when he makes his swallow 

 " Cheep and twitter twenty million loves ; " 



also Lowell again in this line : 



" The thin-winged swallow skating on the air." 



and Virgil : 



" Swallows twitter on the chimney tops." 



Longfellow is perhaps less close and exact in his 

 dealings with nature than any of his compeers, al- 

 though he has written some fine naturalistic poems, 

 as his " Rain in Summer," and others. When his 

 fancy is taken, he does not always stop to ask, Is this 

 BO? Is this true? as when he applies the Spanish 

 proverb, " There are no birds in last year's nests," 

 to the nests beneath the eaves ; for these are just the 

 last year's nests that do contain birds in May. The 

 cliff-swallow and the barn-swallow always reoccupy 

 their old nests, when they are iound intact ; so do 

 some other birds. Again, the hawthorn, or white- 

 thorn, field-fares, belong to English poetry more than 

 to American. The ash in autumn is not deep crim- 

 soned, but a purplish brown. " The ash her purple 

 drops forgivingly," says Lowell in his " Indian-Sum- 

 mer Reverie." Flax is not golden, lilacs are purple 

 or white and not flame-colored, and it is against the 



