Analyze each stanza as to structure. Does the punctuation help to indicate the speaker?
Look up the Bobolink in the Bird Guide or some similar book. How much actual information did Bryant have about the bird? Compare the amount of bird-lore given here with that of Shelley's or Wordsworth's "To a Skylark." Which is more poetic? Which interests you more?
THE POET
5. deem: consider. Compare with the use in the "Song of Marion's Men," 1.21.
8. wreak: carry them out in your verse. The word usually has an angry idea associated with it. The suggestion may be here of the frenzy of a poet.
26. unaptly: not suitable to the occasion.
30. Only in a moment of great emotion (rapture) should the poet revise a poem which was penned when his heart was on fire with the idea of the poem.
38. limn: describe vividly.
54. By this test where would you place Bryant himself? Did he do what he here advises? In what poems do you see evidences of such a method? Compare your idea of him with Lowell's estimate in "A Fable for Critics," ll. 35-56.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN