116 OUR FRIENDS, THE BIRDS. 
Gayest songster of the spring! 
Thy melodies before me bring 
Visions of some dream-built land 
Where, by constant zephyrs fanned, 
I might walk the livelong day, 
Embosomed in perpetual May. 
Nor care nor fear thy bosom knows, 
For thee a tempest never blows; 
But when our northern summer’s o’er, 
By Delaware or Schuylkill’s shore 
The wild rice lifts its airy head, . 
And royal feasts for thee are spread. 
And when the winter threatens there, 
Thy tireless wings yet own no fear, 
But bear thee to more southern coasts, 
Far beyond the reach of frosts. 
Bobolink ! still may thy gladness 
Take from me all taints of sadness. 
“Student” said: ‘James Russell Lowell was a 
great lover of this bird. He said: 
‘“‘Why, I’d give more for one live Bobolink 
Than a square mile 0’ larks in printer’s ink.”’ 
‘“My mother,” she continued, “ called my attention 
to these beautiful lines by him: 
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 mock despair, 
Runs down a brook o’ laughter, thro’ the air. 
