74 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



alone shall resolve that performance to its elements and render 

 us its units of sound. Not until thus secured, and his phonetic 

 "cylinder" then slowly revolved for analysis, shall we learn what 

 Robert has so long been guarding from our ears beneath all this 

 vocal acrobatics. 



Many friends of Mr. Beecher will recall his " bobolink " jar- 

 gon, with which he was wont " to set the table on a roar," and in 

 whose mad whirl this half-drowned ingredient of "temperance" 

 occasionally struggled to the surface. And I note that Bur- 

 roughs also has detected in the song this same token of rebel- 

 lious conscience, while, whether from anticipation or not, my own 

 ears have certainly discerned something very like it interspersed 

 with Pickwickian effect catching at straws, as it were in the 

 tide of this exuberant, bubbling effervescence. 



How have the poets followed Bob afield, eavesdropping in his 

 domain, but while they have occasionally reflected his ecstatic 

 spirit, who among them has brought back his voice ? The robin, 

 the bluebird, the chickadee, and various other birds have found 

 their stenographers, but not Bobolink. 



Bryant's well-known poem makes only a slight attempt at 

 onomatopoeia, while in Wilson Flagg's noted tribute to the bird 

 I find a much more satisfying and accurate presentation both in 

 spirit and phonetic suggestion of song. We all remember that 

 delightful chapter in which Irving evolves a touching moral to 

 birds and boys through this his favorite "joy of the meadows," 

 and our page can readily bear a repetition of that true bit of por- 

 traiture by Lowell, as voiced in the provincial tongue of Hosea 

 Biglow : 



" June's bridesman, poet o' the year, 

 Gladness on wings, the bobolink is here ; 

 Half hid in tip-top apple-bloom he sings, 

 Or climbs against the breeze with quiverin' wings, 

 Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, 

 Runs down a brook o' laughter thro' the air." 



That last line is worth a whole page of phonetics, and recalls 

 that wonderful parallel passage of Thoreau's to me the most 



