The Face of the Fields

by Dallas Lore Sharp

The brook that springs in yonder heights;

So flows the good with equal law

Unto the soul of pure delights.

And what is it that is due him? Everything; everything essential; as everything essential is due the pine tree, the prairie, the very planet. Is not this earth a star? Are not the prairie, the pine tree, and man the dust of stars? each a part of the other? all parts of one whole—a universe, round, rolling, without beginning, without end, without flaw, without lack, a universe self-sustained, perfect?

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.

Mr. Burroughs came naturally by such a view of nature and its consequent optimism. It is due partly to his having been born and brought up on a farm where he had what was due him from the start. Such birth and bringing-up is the natural right of every boy. To know and to do the primitive, the elemental; to go barefoot, to drive the cows, to fish, and to go to school with not too many books but with “plenty of real things”—these are nominated in every boy’s bond.

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,