PEPACTON 



songs; if it could be reproduced in color, it would 

 be the hue of the purest sky. 



Longfellow makes the swallow sing : 



"The darting swallows soar and sing;" 

 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;" 



so 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 so ? 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 

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