FullReads

Of course the poet was not writing an agricultural essay, yet one does not like to feel that he was obliged to ignore or sacrifice any part of the truth to build up his verse. One likes to see him keep within the fact without being conscious of it or hampered by it, as he does in “The Planting of the Apple-Tree,” or in the “Lines to a Water-Fowl.”

But there are glimpses of American scenery and climate in Bryant that are unmistakable, as in these lines from “Midsummer:”–

“Look forth upon the earth–her
thousand plants
Are smitten; even the dark,
sun-loving maize
Faints in the field beneath the torrid
blaze;
The herd beside the shaded fountain
pants;
For life is driven from all the
landscape brown;
The bird has sought his tree, the
snake his den,
The trout floats dead in the hot
stream, and men
Drop by the sunstroke in the
populous town.”

Here is a touch of our “heated term” when the dogstar is abroad and the weather runs mad. I regret the “trout floating dead in the hot stream,” because, if such a thing ever has occurred, it is entirely exceptional. The trout in such weather seek the deep water and the spring holes, and hide beneath rocks and willow banks. The following lines would be impossible in an English poem:–

“The snowbird twittered on the
beechen bough,
And ‘neath the hemlock, whose thick
branches bent
Beneath its bright, cold burden, and
kept dry
A circle, on the earth, of withered
leaves,
The partridge found a shelter.”

Both Bryant and Longfellow put their spring bluebird in the elm, which is a much better place for the oriole,–the elm-loving oriole. The bluebird prefers a humbler perch. Lowell puts him upon a post in the fence, which is a characteristic attitude:–

“The bluebird, shifting his light load of
song,
From post to post along the cheerless
fence.”

Emerson calls him “April’s bird,” and makes him “fly before from tree to tree,” which is also good. But the bluebird is not strictly a songster in the sense in which the song sparrow or the indigo-bird, or the English robin redbreast, is; nor do Bryant’s lines hit the mark:–

“The bluebird chants, from the elm’s
long branches,
A hymn to welcome the budding
year.”

Lowell, again, is nearer the truth when he speaks of his “whiff of song.” All his notes are call-notes, and are addressed directly to his mate. The songbirds take up a position and lift up their voices and sing. It is a deliberate musical performance, as much so as that of Nilsson or Patti. The bluebird, however, never strikes an attitude and sings for the mere song’s sake. But the poets are perhaps to be allowed this latitude, only their pages lose rather than gain by it. Nothing is so welcome in this field as characteristic touches, a word or a phrase that fits this case and no other. If the bluebird chants a hymn, what does the wood thrush do? Yet the bluebird’s note is more pleasing than most bird- songs; if it could be reproduced in color, it would be the hue of the purest sky.

Longfellow makes the swallow sing:–

“The darting swallows soar and sing;”–

which would leave him no room to describe the lark, if the lark had been about. Bryant comes nearer the mark this time:–

“There are notes of joy from the
hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all
the sky;”

so does Tennyson when he makes his swallow

“Cheep and twitter twenty million
loves;”