90 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS things. Old age is practically held at bay so long as one can keep the currents of his life moving. The vital currents, like mountain streams, tend to rejuvenate themselves as they flow. . . Nature is always young, and there is no greater felicity than to share in her youth. I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.*' Someone has said that poets are bom, not made. We have already said that Mr. Burroughs is a bom naturalist. Poetry is worth while only as it expresses a universal principle ; that is, the theme possesses an element that strikes a universal chord ; something that threads its way through human activity and human life and connects it with the universal. That the realm of nature possesses this primal and universal element cannot be contradicted. Bird hues run the entire scale through prismatic and secondary; bird songs ring the entire gamut of note and tone. Every naturalist possesses in high degree, or should possess, the poetic instinct. That the poetry of Mr. Burroughs touches a universal chord in the human breast is exemplified in two of his best-known poems, the first of which, entitled The Return j is given below: THE RETURN He sought the old scenes with eager feet — The scenes he had known as a boy ;
- * Oh, for a draught of those fountains sweet.
And a taste of that vanquished joy !*' He roamed the fields, he wooed the streams, His school-boy paths essayed to trace ; The orchard ways recalled his dreams, The hills were like his mother's face. Oh, sad, sad hills ! Oh, cold, cold hearth ! In sorrow he learned this truth — One may return to the place of his birth, He cannot go back to his youth. His other poem. Waiting ^ perhaps best known, is here given :
