March and April come and go, and May succeeds. Hers is not quite the "blue, voluptuous eye" she wears in the portraits which poets paint of her, and those who court her smiles are sometimes chilled by decidedly wintry glances. Bryant gives us her best aspect:-- "The sun of May was bright in middle heaven, And steeped the sprouting forests, the green hills, And emerald wheat-fields, in his yellow light. Upon the apple-tree, where rosy buds Stood clustered, ready to burst forth in bloom, The robin warbled forth his full clear note For hours, and wearied not. Within the woods, Where young and half-transparent leaves scarce cast A shade, gay circles of anemones Danced on their stalks; the shad-bush, white with flowers, Brightened the glens; the new-leaved butternut And quivering poplar to the roving breeze Gave a balsamic fragrance." How admirable this is! And with what truth, we had almost said courage, the poet makes his report. The emerald wheat-fields, the rosy buds of the apple-tree, the half-transparent leaves of the trees, the anemones on their restless stalks, the shad-bush (_Amelanchier Botryapium_), the quivering poplars, and the peculiar balsamic odor which one perceives in the woods at that season are so exactly what we find in our New-England May! How much better these distinct statements are than a tissue of generalities about flowery wreaths, and fragrant zephyrs, and genial rays, and fresh verdure, and vernal airs, and ambrosial dews! But the year goes on. Our fitful and capricious spring passes by, and summer takes its place. But our New-England summer is not like the summer of Thomson and Cowper, and images drawn from English poetry and transplanted here would be out of place; and our faithful interpreter of American Nature takes nothing at second-hand. How correctly he delineates the characteristic features of our glorious month of June! "There, through the long, long summer hours, The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by. The oriole should build and tell His love-tale close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him here, and there be heard The housewife-bee and humming-bird." The _housewife_-bee is an expressive epithet. Does it involve a double meaning, and insinuate that as a bee carries a sting, so women who are stirring, notable, and good housekeepers have something sharp in their natures? Next comes midsummer with its fervid and overpowering heats, which find in our poet also an accurate delineator.