104 PEPACTON 



which occurs farther along in the same poem, and 

 which is so characteristic of the older farms of 

 New York and New England. I hardly know what 

 the poet means by 



"The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee," 

 as the mowers do not wade in the grass they are 

 cutting, though they might appear to do so when 

 viewed athwart the standing grass; perhaps this is 

 the explanation of the line. 



But this is just what the bobolink does when 

 the care of his young begins to weigh upon him : 



" 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 winrows most demurely drops." 



I do not vouch for that dropping between the wind- 

 rows, as in my part of the country the bobolinks 

 flee before the hay-makers, but that sudden stop- 

 ping on the brink of rapture, as if thoughts of his 

 helpless young had extinguished his joy, is charac- 

 teristic. 



Another carefully studied description of Lowell's 

 is this: 



" The robin sings as of old from the limb! 



The catbird croons hi the lilac-bush! 

 Through the dim arbor, himself more dim, 

 Silently hops the hermit thrush." 



Among trees Lowell has celebrated the oak, the 

 pine, the birch; and among flowers, the violet and 

 the dandelion. The last, I think, is the most 

 pleasing of these poems : 



" Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 

 Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 

 First pledge of blithesome May." 



