96 PEPACTON 



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 

 dogstar 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 exceptional. 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 snowbird 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 

 bluebird in the elm, which is a much better place 

 for the oriole, the elm-loving oriole. The blue- 

 bird prefers a humbler perch. Lowell puts him 

 upon a post in the fence, which is a characteristic 

 attitude : 



" The bluebird, shifting his light load of song, 

 From post to post along the cheerless fence." 



Emerson calls him "April's bird," and makes him 

 "fly before from tree to tree," which is also good. 

 But the bluebird is not strictly a songster in the 

 sense in which the song sparrow or the indigo-bird, 

 or the English robin redbreast, is; nor do Bryant's 

 lines hit^ the mark : 



" The bluebird chants, from the elm's long branches, 

 A hymn to welcome the budding year." 



Lowell, again, is nearer the truth when he speaks of 



