JOHN BURROUGHS In Remembrance University of California Berkeley JOHN BURROUGHS In Remembrance 1 G. C, FI8HE John Burroughs in The Nest at Riverby SERVICES AT THE NEST In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. * * :: ;: * And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them. * * * Genesis I O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth, Who hast set thy glory upon the heavens! When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him but little lower than God, And crownest him with glory and honor Psalm 8:1, 3-5 The heavens declare the glory of Grod; And the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, And rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course. Psalm 19:1-5 * * * Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they?*** But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed * * * for your heavenly Father knoweth ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteous- ness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matt. 6:25-26; 30-33 GOD OF OUR FATHERS, WE THANK THEE God of our fathers, God of our children's children, Thou art our dwelling-place in all generations. Along the highway of truth our journey's end is ever in Thy heart. And though forever go we forth from Thee upon daring quest, and the far adventures of life, Yet alway Thou art unto us, by day as an open road, as friendship fires at eventide. Reveal Thyself unto us anew in this hour of falling shadow Nay, rather, this hour of lifting light Until that which seemeth shadow, shall become the portals of dawn! Upon the threshold of our beloved's translation we are mindful of the multitude of witnesses round about. A world comes with us to pay tribute eagerly at a shrine of love. Little children are here, with woods' flowers in their hands; With the morning upon them come the youth of the nation ; Men and women come, from field and shop, from mart and office, from home and school and church and state; And lo! Help us to listen What voices these out of the distances? yesterday and tomorrow, proclaim- ing tribute! And Thy voices call to us in this hour, Thy Voice as the voice of many waters; Blue of the bending sky ; Valley of the River ; Fragrance of arbutus flower, opening under the pine; Melodious song of the hillside brook ; Swollen torrent roaring down its glen. How wondrous are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all. Teach us to appreciate Thy loving kindness ; To understand Thy benign disposition toward Thy children ; To know that the world is good. As when on yonder heights, among the unfading balsams, our spirits thrilled to the silver bugles of the mountain veery, So with Thy still small Voice, sound through our souls and awaken gratitude! We thank Thee, O Great Teacher! for our teachers, Thy living prophets, whom Thou hast sent, For delicate fingers feeling their way into the secrets of life, For keen eyes seeing distinctly and unafraid, For minds pure to the mastery of truth; For brave souls hating a lie. And above all, O God of the fireside and the social community ! We thank Thee for neighbor and friend Amen. FRANKLIN D. ELMER In 1915 Mr. Burroughs said to a friend: "When the time comes that I go back to Mother Earth, nothing more appropriate could be read to the gathered friends than these lines:" Upon this changing globe which blindly moves Among its kindred in the helpless heavens, Behold myself a finite thing, alive, Blood, marrow, brain, they are but higher names For common dust, which restless Circumstance Hath brought together into transient form, Which acts upon itself, within itself, Calling its action Life, or Mind or Soul. Whence came I ? Ask the raincloud whence the drop Which rushes down with millions of its kind. I know not save that somehow in the slow And aimless fingers of that Mother All \Vhich, deaf and blind and dumb, forever toils, I did appear. And whither shall I go When in a little while this gathered mass Which is the Me, shall lose its lineaments And sink again in that from which, at first Its outlines woke within the senseless hands? Ask Night where went the beam that danced upon The mountain's shoulder when the sun was low ! I was not; I became; and when the time Hath ripened, I shall but return again Into that Nothingness which is the All. About me is the earth, beloved, mine, The parent, the companion, and the friend; The forest nods in fellowship; the winds My playmates are; the waters lisp the sign Of brotherhood; and in the thunder's voice I hear a tongue which is not wholly strange. The stars are kindly councillors to me ; I claim a kinship with the worm that crawls, And with the clay wherein the simple tale Of its dim life is written. When sometimes The knowledge of the certainty of death Sits heavily, I do but pause and weigh That deeper truth I do not need to care. My pleasure is the earth's, my pain is hers, For we are one, and neither time nor change Can work us injury. I am not all, I am a part of all, and whether clothed With flesh and feeling, hurled through lava-heat Or strewn in that green midnight, miles below The ruthless tempest and the hungry wave No evil shall befall me. Neither death, Nor that succession of eternities Which is to follow after, can destroy One atom. In those elemental joys Which thrill through all the worlds, each scattered part Shall reap its portion, full as though it lay As now, in that defined and guarded shape Which is mysef myself, so closely wrapped In the sweet fiction called Identity That unto which these finite passions cleave As though it were a thing and not a thought. What of my duty, that concerning which My brethren have so much perplexed themselves And shed each other's blood? It is but this, That I be mindful of the joys of all And vigilant against the common pain, For what my brother suffers or enjoys So, too, do I, although I know it not. Thus do I see and know myself, a mould Of that same sentient and eternal stuff Whereof this realm, and all the heavens and hells And that which made, and makes them, is composed. Loosed from the rude and fretful myths of gods, Sins, purpose in creation, permanence Of self, and man's superior origin, I go my way among the rolling spheres, Alive and glad, and also unafraid. Weave on, Blind Mother, at thine awful loom, With chains of worlds for thread, with endless time, As needs be, for the fashioning of that Which never can be finished. Toil thou on While we, thy careless little ones, rejoice In that which thou hast done the wondrous moon Above the hills, the gentle winds that play Their ancient games among the talking leaves, The sunshine and the rain upon the roofs That shelter those we love; and everything Within us that is either great or good. EARL W. WILLIAMS A POET'S EPITAPH * * * But who is He, with modest looks, And clad in homely russet brown? He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own. He is retired as moontide dew, Or fountain in a noon-day grove ; And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love. The outward shows of sky and earth, Of hill and valley, he has viewed ; And impulses of deeper birth Have come to him in solitude. In common things that round us lie Some random truths he can impart, The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart. * * * WORDSWORTH THE THRENODY * * * Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach, and sunsets show? Verdict which accumulates From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned, Saying, What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent; Hearts arc dust, hearts' loves remain; Heart's love will meet thee again. EMERSON THE GATES OF SILENCE The races rise and fall, The nations come and go, Time tenderly doth cover all With violets and snow. The mortal tide moves on To some immortal shore. Past purple peaks of dusk and da\u Into the evermore. I could not see till I was blind, Then color, music, light, Came floating down on every wind And noonday was at night. I could not feel till I was dead ; Then through the mold and wet A rose breathed softly overhead, I heard a violet. One by one, the gods we know Weary of our trust, One by one the prophets go Dreaming to the dust. All the cobweb creeds of men Vanish into air, Leaving nothing, save a "When?" Nothing, save a "Where?" From the dim starry track Never a man comes back; Of future weal or woe Never a man doth know. Nor you, nor I, nor he, Can solve the mystery ; Come, let us boldly press On to the fathomless. All the tomes of all the tribes, All the songs of all the scribes, All that priests and prophets say, What is it? and what are they? Fancies- futile, feeble, vain, Idle dream-drift of the brain, As of old the mystery Doth encompass you and me. * # # * What star-shod paths lead up to God We may not know, we may not see: The highways that the dead have trod Are 'curtained close with mystery. But if this goodly earth and fair Be token of infinite grace, Ah, who can dream the glories rare In store for man's immortal race! ROBERT LOVEMAN 10 BAREST THOU NOW, O SOUL! Darest thou now, O soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the foot nor any path to follow ? No map there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. I know it not, O soul, Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land. Till when the ties loosen, All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bound- ing us. Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space, O soul, prepared for them, Equal, equipt at last (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfill, O soul! WHITMAN 11 SELECTIONS FROM THE EARLIEST AND LATEST WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS WAITING Serene I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for winds, nor tide, nor sea ; I rave no more 'gainst time and fate, For lo! my own shall come to me. I stay my haste, I make delays ; For what avails this eager pace? I stand amid the 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 garner 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. JOHN BURROUGHS 12 We are a part of the wave of energy that sweeps through the cosmos, as truly as the drops of the sea hold and convey the tidal impulse. We know, or think we know, the sources of this tidal impulse, but the at- traction between earth and moon and sun is reciprocal^ a give-and-take process and is only a phase of the sum total (if the Inhnite can be said to have a sum total) of the energy of the cosmos. The magnet and magnetism are one. If you melt or pulverize the magnet, you dissipate, but do not destroy the magnetism. The clouds come and go; now we see them, and then there is only blue sky where they were. Change, but not destruction. When the thunder-cloud disperses, where are its terrible bolts ? Withdrawn, prob- ably, or redistributed into the inmost recesses of matter or of the ether. The energy of the human brain and body cannot be destroyed by death, only changed. If consciousness is a force, then it, too, must persist. # # # * The laws of life and death are as they should be. The laws of matter and force are as they should be; and if death ends my consciousness, still is death good. I have had life on those terms, and somewhere, somehow, the course of nature is justified. I shall not be imprisoned in that grave where you are to bury my body. I shall be diffused in great Nature, in the soil, in the air, in the sunshine, in the hearts of those who love me, in all the living and flowing currents of the world, though I may never again in my entirety be embodied in a single human being. My elements and my forces go back into the original sources out of which they came, and these sources are perennial in this vast, wonderful, divine cosmos. (From "Accepting the Universe "). JOHN BURROUGHS 13 SERVICES AT THE GRAVE The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me ; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. * * * * Psalm 23 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace ; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah 55, 12. "GOD OF OUR FATHERS, WE THANK THEE" Read as at previous service SONG OF MYSELF * * * This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be fiWd and satisfied then? And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond. * * * * * WHITMAN 15 THE STILL TREES I thank you, Elm and Beech, and all my friends That live so wisely on the happy hills, I thank you for your silence. Even a friend Especially a friend must have his moods, His long still days of dreaming silence, spent In strange communion with his soul and God. And you, my friends, have chosen for your silence The slow lean months of winter. All the burdens And all the joys of this embattled earth You dare forget, so that your soul and God May have their hour of studious solitude. So I, O friends, who walk among you now, Go searching inward to the soul in me, And bend my dreams unto the God we know. I thank you, Elm and Beech, and all my friends That live so wisely on the happy hills. JOHN RUSSELL MCCARTHY YOUTH There's a spirit bends the maple, makes it beckon like a hand, Makes it murmur in a language that my heart can understand ; They will sing their song together April's spirit and my heart Out beyond the merry foothills, where the giant mountains start. There's a yellow on the highroad that is gold enough for me, And the wine of April's showers is as clear as it is free, See it sparkle in; the sunshine? And beyond the breathing hills Lies the prize of hope and striving youth demands and life fulfills. JOHN RUSSELL MCCARTHY 16 TO JOHN BURROUGHS Thou who art eyes and ears for all, And loving heart, What loneliness on us will fall When thou depart. That year unheralded the spring Will weeping come, With halting footsteps bring Why thou art dumb. I think the very streams will know That thou art gone, And full of heavy sorrow flow More slowly on. A hush will fall upon the wood When thou dost sleep, And birds bereft their lover, brood In silence deep. And though thy pinions broader sweep Than eagle's wing, Thou'lt see how we, too, dumbly weep And cannot sing. MAY MORGAN 17 TO JOHN BURROUGHS (On his eighty-third birthday, April 3, 1920) When you were born on that April day Up on the hillside, Roxbury way, A violet peeped from the springing sod, A robin carolled a song of God; And Nature laughed "What a wondrous thing Little John has come, so it must be spring !" The flowers and song-birds, Ah, they knew The love that lay in the heart of you ! So they helped you live, and they watched you grow In the simple way of long ago, Blossoming and singing near you at play, They companioned the boy up Roxbury way. And we, your friends, who have loved you long. Envy the robin his birthday song; Envy the violet in the grass Springing to welcome you as you pass, So take the song and the violet blue As being our proxies of love to you, And wherever you bide in the coming years We will call to you when the spring appears. JEAN DWIGHT FRANKLIN 18 JOHN BURROUGHS CALLED BACK In glorious hour the great soul passed, And he will find his own at last Ufcon the edge of April, while The earth is quickening, mile by mile, His young soul, thrilled by the mysterious breath Goes singing through the doors of death. He who was comrade to the herds, He who was brother to the birds, He who had all the flowers for friends Has gone the road that never ends. Crowned with his golden lore he goes While earth is dreaming of the rose; And as he passes he can hear The far song of the flowering year. While grasses hurry into earth He rises to his higher birth, Where Audubon and Jefferies are Exploring nature in their star- Where Ruskin, lover of old roads, And Turner, have their bright abodes, He goes and round his head is hurled The April vision of the world : He carries as his feet depart, The warm love of the whole earth's heart. EDWIN MARK HAM 19 JOHN BURROUGHS Who would not envy him the years As he has turned them page by page Of Nature's wonder-book? Who fears To climb with him the Hills of Age? When he has found their summits yield But wider views of all things good More of the beauty of the field, More of the magic of the wood? The wheeling sun, the wakening earth. Nest-time and seed-time in his mind Gained fairer meaning, higher worth, He taught new vision to the blind. Glad hearing to the silent ears Till in the meadows every spring, They sense the music of the spheres When bobolinks begin to sing. I think where'er he rests the place Will be the robin's safe retreat; The winter snow will bear the trace Of small four-footed pilgrims' feet. Surely these hills of his will know And not forget who gave them voice; The field and roadside flowers will grow Close to the Lodge, and birds rejoice To nest above his door, or where A bearded birch tree on the rocks, Wind-blown he scans the Delaware, And marks the turning equinox. Thus, then, we see him staunch with age, Young as the year's eternal spring The Seer, the Poet, and the Sage Discerning good in everything. 20 Watching the quiet tide of days Untroubled by its slow decrease, He stands amid the Eternal Ways Secure that all leads on to peace. Content to wait with quiet hands Until his own shall come for he Sees through the veil, and understands ; And seeing, teaches us to see ! CHARLES BUXTON GOING NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP Now I lay me down to sleep By the rock where 1 shall keep My tryst with Mother Earth. Shed not for me a single tear, But gladly leave my body here To find its second birth. Seek me in each living thing. Hear my voice with birds of spring, And in the singing brook. Dear ones who have come today, My life's love shall with you stay Through the coming years. Be ye real and be ye true, Do the work that comes to you Joyously and well. Leave me now and let me lie To live again I had to die: Let Nature have her way. GRACE DAVIS VANAMEE 21 REQUIEM Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did 1 live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me : Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill. ROBERT Louis STEVENSON AT CLOSE OF DAY Guarding rock and brooding sky, Hill whereon the red kine lie, Welcome to earth's vernal breast Him who cometh here to rest. Songs of northward-winging birds Be this hour's most fitting words ; Mounting sun and spreading light, Symbol thou this spirit's flight. Earth, sweet mother of our race, In thy warm heart make his place; He who trod thy starry way Cometh home at close of day. FRANK TALBOT 22 THE SOUL'S RETURN There is one spot for which my soul will yearn, May it but come where breeze and sunlight play, And leaves are glad ; from the dark realm return ; A waif a presence borne on kindly ray Even thus, if but beneath the same blue sky ! The grazing kine not then will see me cross The pasture slope; the swallows will not shy, Nor brooding thrush; blithe bees the flowers will toss: Not the faint thistle-down my breath may charm. Ah, me! But I shall find the dear ways old, If I have leave; that sheltered valley farm; Its climbing woods, its spring, the meadow's gold : The creek-path, dearest to my boyhood's feet Oh, God ! is there another world so sweet ? MYRON B. BENTON 23 Services were held at The Nest at Riverby, West Park-on-thc~Hudson, April 2, 1921, the Reverend Franklin D. Elmer and other friends reading the selections. "Remembrance" (Pin- suiti) and 'The Cradle Song" (Brahms) opened and closed the services. On the following day, the anniversary of the eighty-fourth birthday, services were held at the grave by the Boyhood Rock near Woodchuck Lodge, at Roxbury-in-the-Cats~ kills. The music of the preceding day was repeated. /-/%# 4 ^