Waiting

John Burroughs

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
    Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or 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 height;
So flows the good with equal law
    Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
    The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
    Can keep my own away from me.

John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American essayist and naturalist who, following in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, devoted his career to celebrating the natural world through a literary lens. Born on a farm near Roxbury, New York, he worked as a teacher, farmer, and Treasury Department clerk before publishing his first major nature essay collection, Wake-Robin, in 1871. Over the next half century, from his retreats in New York’s Hudson River valley, he produced numerous beloved works such as Birds and Poets (1877), Locusts and Wild Honey (1879), and Ways of Nature (1905). A close friend of Walt Whitman and an avid traveler, Burroughs camped with the likes of naturalist John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt, and he accompanied a scientific expedition to Alaska. His later writings adopted a more meditative and philosophical tone, yet he remained best known for his keen observations of birds, flowers, and rural life. He died en route from California to New York at age 83, and his legacy endures through the John Burroughs Association, which honors distinguished natural history writing.