170 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



Painted more soft and fair as they descend 

 Almost to touch; — then up again aloft, 

 Up with a sally, and a flash of speed, 

 As if they scorned both resting-place and rest! 



{Recluse, I, 203-229) 



" If," says Professor Cooper, "it is connected with something 

 similar in Bartram, [this passage] well exemplifies the poet's 

 complete mastery in adapting an artistic source." *° Such a con- 

 nection is not implausible ; the passage which Professor Cooper 

 cites and the other passages to which he refers provide interest- 

 ing parallels in diction and in general atmosphere with Words- 

 worth's lines. For purposes of comparison striking similarities in 

 both authors have been italicized, and for the same reason the 

 quotation from Wordsworth needs to be enlarged by including 

 the six lines immediately preceding those already quoted. They 

 are: 



. . . like them 



I cannot take possession of the sky. 



Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there. 



One of a mighty multitude, whose way 



Is a perpetual harmony, and dance 



Magnificent. 



Now Bartram, as has been shown, was fascinated by the flight 

 of birds and his pages contain many descriptions that Words- 

 worth may have remembered: 



Behold the loud, sonorous, watchful savanna crane . . . with musical 

 clangor, in detached squadrons. They spread their light elastic sail; 

 at first they move from the earth heavy and slow, they labour and beat 

 the dense air: they form the line with wide extended wings . . . they 

 all rise and fall together as one bird; now they mount aloft, gradually 

 wheeling about, each squadron performs its evolution, incircling the 

 expansive plain, observing each one their own orbit; then lowering 

 sail, descend on the verge of some glittering lake, whilst other squad- 

 rons, ascending aloft in spiral circles . . . wheel round and double 

 the promontory, in the silvery regions of the clouded skies, where, far 

 from the scope of the eye, they carefully observe the verdant meadows 

 on the borders of the East Lake ; then contract their plumes and descend 

 to earth ... (p. 146-147). 



" Athenaeum, April 22, 1905, p. 499. 



