NATURE AND THE POETS 109 



yellow-crowned heron, the razor-billed auk, the 

 lone wood duck, the migrating geese, the sharp- 

 hoofed moose, the mockingbird, "the thrush, the 

 hermit," etc., — to help locate and define his posi- 

 tion. Everywhere in nature Whitman finds human 

 relations, human responsions. In entire consistence 

 with botany, geology, science, or what not, he en- 

 dues his very seas and woods with passion, more 

 than the old hamadryads or tritons. His fields, 

 his rocks, his trees, are not dead material, but liv- 

 ing companions. This is doubtless one reason why 

 Addington Symonds, the young Hellenic scholar of 

 England, finds him more thoroughly Greek than 

 any other man of modern times. 



Our natural history, and indeed all phases of life 

 in this country, are rich in materials for the poet 

 that have yet hardly been touched. Many of our 

 most familiar birds, which are inseparably associ- 

 ated with one's walks and recreations in the open 

 air, and with the changes of the seasons, are yet 

 awaiting their poet, — as the high-hole, with his 

 golden- shafted quills and loud continued spring call ; 

 the meadowlark, with her crescent-marked breast 

 and long-drawn, piercing, yet tender April and May 

 summons forming, with that of the high-hole, one 

 of the three or four most characteristic field sounds 

 of our spring; the happy goldfinch, circling round 

 and round in midsummer with that peculiar undu- 

 lating flight and caHing per-chicy-o-pee, per-chick'- 

 o-pee^ at each opening and shutting of the wings, 

 or later leading her plaintive brood among the this- 



