Compare the description in Sunthin’ in the Pastoral Line:

    “‘Nuff said, June’s bridesman, poet o’ the year,
    Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here;
    Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings,
    Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin’ wings,
    Or, givin’ way to ’t in a mock despair,
    Runs down, a brook o’ laughter, thru the air.”

See also the opening lines of Under the Willows for another description full of the ecstasy of both bird and poet.  The two passages woven together appear in the essay Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, as a quotation.  An early poem on The Bobolink, delightful and widely popular, was omitted from later editions of his poems by Lowell, perhaps because to his maturer taste the theme was too much moralized in his early manner.  “Shelley and Wordsworth,” says Mr. Brownell, “have not more worthily immortalized the skylark than Lowell has the bobolink, its New England congener.”

134.  Another change:  The description now returns to the marshes.

147.  Simond’s hill:  In the essay Cambridge Thirty Years Ago Lowell describes the village as seen from the top of this hill.

159-161.  An allusion to the Mexican War, against which Lowell was directing the satire of the Biglow Papers.

174-182.  Compare the winter pictures in Whittier’s Snowbound.

177.  Formal candles:  Candles lighted for some form or ceremony, as in a religious service.

192.  Stonehenge:  Stonehenge on Salisbury plain in the south of England is famous for its huge blocks of stone now lying in confusion, supposed to be the remains of an ancient Druid temple.

207.  Sanding:  The continuance of the metaphor in “higher waves” are “whelming.”  With high waves the sand is brought in upon the land, encroaching upon its limits.

209.  Muses’ factories:  The buildings of Harvard College.

218.  House-bespotted swell:  Lowell notes with some resentment the change from nature’s simple beauties to the pretentiousness of wealth shown in incongruous buildings.

220.  Cits:  Contracted from citizens.  During the French Revolution, when all titles were abolished, the term citizen was applied to every one, to denote democratic simplicity and equality.

223.  Gentle Allston:  Washington Allston, the celebrated painter, whom Lowell describes as he remembered him in the charming essay Cambridge Thirty Years Ago.

225.  Virgilium vidi tantum:  I barely saw Virgil—­caught a glimpse of him—­a phrase applied to any passing glimpse of greatness.

227.  Undine-like:  Undine, a graceful water nymph, is the heroine of the charming little romantic story by De la Motte Fouque.

234.  The village blacksmith:  See Longfellow’s famous poem, The Village Blacksmith.  The chestnut was cut down in 1876.  An arm-chair made from its wood still stands in the Longfellow house, a gift to Longfellow from the Cambridge school children.