PEPACTON 



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, is 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, cir- 

 cling round and round in midsummer with that 

 peculiar undulating flight and calling per-chick'-o- 

 pee, per-chick'-o-pee, at each opening and shutting 

 of the wings, or later leading her plaintive brood 

 among the thistle-heads by the roadside ; the little 

 indigo-bird, facing the torrid sun of August and 

 singing through all the livelong summer day; the 

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