"He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight Linnæa hang its twin-born heads. . . . . . . . . . He heard, when in the grove, at intervals, With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls,-- One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree, Declares the close of its green century." "They led me through the thicket damp, Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp." "He saw the partridge drum in the woods; He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; He found the tawny thrushes' broods; And the shy hawk did wait for him." His "Titmouse" is studied in our winter woods, and his "Humble-Bee" in our summer fields. He has seen farther into the pine-tree than any other poet; his "May-Day" is full of our spring sounds and tokens; he knows the "punctual birds," and the "herbs and simples of the wood:"-- "Rue, cinque-foil, gill, vervain, and agrimony, Blue-vetch, and trillium, hawk-weed, sassafras, Milk-weeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sun-dew." Here is a characteristic touch:-- "A woodland walk A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine, Salve my worst wounds." That "rock-loving columbine" is better than Bryant's "columbines, in purple dressed," as our flower is not purple, but yellow and scarlet. Yet Bryant set the example to the poets that have succeeded him of closely studying Nature as she appears under our own skies. I yield to none in my admiration of the sweetness and simplicity of his poems of nature, and in general of their correctness of observation. They are tender and heartfelt, and they touch chords that no other poet since Wordsworth has touched with so firm a hand. Yet he was not always an infallible observer; he sometimes tripped up on his facts, and at other times he deliberately moulded them, adding to, or cutting off, to suit the purposes of his verse. I will cite here two instances in which his natural history is at fault. In his poem on the bobolink he makes the parent birds feed their young with "seeds," whereas, in fact, the young are fed exclusively upon insects and worms. The bobolink is an insectivorous bird in the North, or until its brood has flown, and a granivorous bird in the South. In his "Evening Revery" occur these lines:-- "The mother bird hath broken for her brood Their prison shells, or shoved them from the nest, Plumed for their earliest flight."