NATURE AND THE POETS 



with, parting around a stone and uniting again be- 

 yond it, and pushing their way along with many 

 a pause and devious turn. One principal office of 

 the roots of a tree is to gripe, to hold fast the earth: 

 hence they feel for and lay hold of every inequality 

 of surface ; they will fit themselves to the top of a 

 comparatively smooth rock, so as to adhere amaz- 

 ingly, and flow into the seams and crevices like 

 metal into a mould. 



Lowell is singularly true to the natural history 

 of his own country. In his " Indian-Summer Rev- 

 erie " we catch a glimpse of the hen-hawk, silently 

 sailing overhead 



"With watchful, measuring eye," 

 the robin feeding on cedar berries, and the squirrel, 

 "On the shingly shagbark's bough." 



I do not remember to have met the " shagbark " in 

 poetry before, or that gray lichen-covered stone wall 

 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. 

 113 



