42. Climbs to a soul, etc.: In his intimate sympathy with nature,
Lowell endows her forms with conscious life, as Wordsworth did, who
says in _Lines Written in Early Spring_:
"And 't is my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes."
So Lowell in _The Cathedral_ says:
"And I believe the brown earth takes delight,
In the new snow-drop looking back at her,
To think that by some vernal alchemy
It could transmute her darkness into pearl."
So again he says in _Under the Willows_:
"I in June am midway to believe
A tree among my far progenitors,
Such sympathy is mine with all the race,
Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet
There is between us."
It must be remembered that this humanizing of nature is an attitude
toward natural objects characteristic only of modern poetry, being
practically unknown in English poetry before the period of Burns and
Wordsworth.
45. The cowslip startles: Surprises the eye with its bright patches
of green sprinkled with golden blossoms. _Cowslip_ is the common name
in New England for the marsh-marigold, which appears early in spring
in low wet meadows, and furnishes not infrequently a savory "mess of
greens" for the farmer's dinner-table.