XIV. 



A BOBOLINK RHAPSODY. 



CAN anything be more lovely than a meadow 

 in June, its tall grass overtopped by daisies, 

 whose open faces, 



* * Candid and simple and nothing-- withholding and free, 

 Publish themselves to the sky " ? 



One such I knew, despised of men as a meadow, 

 no doubt, but glorious to the eye with its un- 

 broken stretch of white bowing before the sum- 

 mer breeze like the waves of the sea, and charm- 

 ing as well to pewee and kingbird who hovered 

 over it, ever and anon diving and bringing up 

 food for the nestlings. When, to a meadow not 

 so completely abandoned to daisies, where but- 

 tercups and red clover flourish among the grass, 

 is added the music of the meadow's poet, the 

 bobolink, surely nothing is lacking to its per- 

 fection. 



Passing such a field one evening, I noted the 

 babble of bobolinks, too far off to hear well, and 

 the next day I set out down another path which 

 passed through the meadow, to cultivate the ac- 

 quaintance of the birds. It was a warm sum- 



