later than this, begin the parching, and panting, and dissolving heats of
summer. But in this genial interval, Nature is in all her freshness and
fragrance: "the rains are over and gone, the flowers appear upon the
earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the
turtle is heard in the land."

2. The trees are now in their fullest foliage and brightest verdure; the
woods are gay with the clustered flowers of the laurel; the air is
perfumed with the sweetbrier and the wild rose; the meadows are enameled
with clover blossoms; while the young apple, peach, and the plum begin to
swell, and the cherry to glow among the green leaves.

3. This is the chosen season of revelry of the bobolink. He comes amid the
pomp and fragrance of the season; his life seems all sensibility and
enjoyment, all song and sunshine. He is to be found in the soft bosoms of
the freshest and sweetest meadows, and is most in song when the clover is
in blossom. He perches on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some long,
flaunting weed, and, as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a
succession of rich, tinkling notes, crowding one upon another, like the
outpouring melody of the skylark, and possessing the same rapturous
character.

4. Sometimes he pitches from the summit of a tree, begins his song as soon
as he gets upon the wing, and flutters tremulously down to the earth, as
if overcome with ecstasy at his own music. Sometimes he is in pursuit of
his mate; always in full song, as if he would win her by his melody; and
always with the same appearance of intoxication and delight. Of all the
birds of our groves and meadows, the bobolink was the envy of my boyhood.
He crossed my path in the sweetest weather, and the sweetest season of the
year, when all nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed
in every bosom; but when I, luckless urchin! was doomed to be mewed up,
during the live-long day, in a schoolroom.

5. It seemed as if the little varlet mocked at me as he flew by in full
song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. Oh, how I envied him!
No lessons, no task, no school; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields,
and fine weather. Had I been then more versed in poetry, I might have
addressed him in the words of Logan to the cuckoo:

"Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.

"Oh. could I fly,