instead of being buried recumbent as white men are. And thus he wrote in "To a Caty-did," "The Wild Honeysuckle," and "On a Honey Bee," little lyrics of nature and natural life, which were almost the first verse written in America based on native subject matter and expressed in simple, direct, and unpretentious form. Nathaniel Ames, in one of his early almanacs, recorded soberly: MAY Now Winters rage abates, now chearful Hours Awake the Spring, and Spring awakes the Flowers. The opening Buds salute the welcome Day, And Earth relenting, feels the genial Ray. The Blossoms blow, the Birds on Bushes sing; And Nature has accomplish'd all the Spring. This was perfectly conventional and perfectly indefinite; not a single flower, bud, blossom, bird, or bush is specified. The six lines amount to a general formula for spring and would apply equally well to Patagonia, Italy, New England, or northern Siberia. Mr. R. Lewis, who wrote on "A Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis" in 1730, improves on this: First born of _Spring_, here the _Pacone_ appears. Whose golden Root a silver Blossom rears. In spreading Tufts see there the _Crowfoot_, blue, On whose green Leaves still shines a globous Dew; Behold the _Cinque-foil_, with its dazling Dye Of flaming Yellow, wounds the tender Eye. But there enclos'd the grassy Wheat is seen To heal the aching Sight with cheerful Green. Lewis mentions definite flowers, colors, and characteristics, but he never misses a chance to tuck in a conventional adjective or participle, and he is led by them into weaving the extravagant fancy of an eye made to ache by flaming and dazzling colors, and healed by the cheerful green of the wheat field. In contrast to these, Freneau's little nature poems are as exact as the second and as simple as the subject on which he writes: In a branch of willow hid Sings the evening Caty-did: From the lofty locust bough Feeding on a drop of dew. In her suit of green array'd Hear her singing in the shade, Caty-did, Caty-did, Caty-did. Such simplicity as this does not seem at all remarkable to-day, but if it be compared with the fixed formalities that belonged to almost all the verse of Freneau's time it will stand out as a remarkable exception.