Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/110

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JOHN BURROUGHS 91 WAITING Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea ; I rave no more Against time or fate, For lo I my own shall come to me. I stay my haste, I make delays, For what avails this eager pace! ^* I stand amid th' eternal ways. And what is mine shall know my face. Asleep, awake, by night or day. The friends I seek are seeking me ; No wind can drive my bark astray, Nor change the tide of destiny. What matter if I stand alone ! I wait with joy the coming years ; My heart shall reap where it hath sown. And gamer up its fruit of tears. The waters know their own and draw The brook that springs in yonder heights ; So flows the good with equal law Unto the soul of pure delights. The stars come nightly to the sky ; The tidal wave comes to the sea ; Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high. Can keep my own away from me. [Republished by courtesy of John Burroughs.] The bulk of all that Burroughs has written is contained in about sixteen volumes, almost entirely prose. In his early writing he evinced a tendency toward the philosophic and psy- chologic, a field that had already been occupied by such a mas- ter as Emerson, and of whom Burroughs would be a disciple. In addition to his Nature study work, his thinking and writ- ing were along the hues of literary critidsm and pMlosophical and religious discussion. Wake Robin appeared in 1871, followed by Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers j and Winter Sunshine in 1875 ; Birds and