NATURE AND THE POETS 99 



upon fish, whicli it usually swallows as it catches 

 them. Virgil is nearer to fact when he says : — 



" When crying cormorants forsake the sea 

 And, stretching to the covert, -wing their way." 



But cormorant with Longfellow may stand for any 

 of the large rapacious birds, as the eagle or the con- 

 dor. True, and yet the picture is purely a fanciful 

 one, as no bird of prey sails with his burden ; on 

 the contrary he flaps heavily and laboriously, be- 

 cause he is always obliged to mount. The stress 

 of the rhyme and metre are of course in this case 

 very great, and it is they, doubtless, that drove the 

 poet into this false picture of a bird of prey laden 

 with his quarry. It is an ungracious task, how- 

 ever, to cross-question the gentle Muse of Longfel- 

 low in this manner. He is a true poet if there 

 ever was one, and the slips I point out are only 

 like an obscure feather or two in the dove carelessly 

 preened. The burnished plumage and the bright 

 hues hide them unless we look sharply. 



Whittier gets closer to the bone of the New Eng- 

 land nature. He comes from the farm, and his 

 memory is stored with boyhood's wild and curious 

 lore, with 



" Knowledge never learned of schools, 

 Of the wild bee's morning chase. 

 Of the wild flower's time and place, 

 Flight of fowl and habitude 

 Of the tenants of the wood; 

 How the tortoise bears his shell, 

 How the woodchuck digs his cell, 

 And the ground-mole sinks his well; 

 How the robin feeds her young; 

 How the oriole's nest is hung; 



