One Who Loved Nature

He was not learned in any art;But Nature led him by the hand;And spoke her language to his heartSo he could hear and understand:He loved her simply as a child;And in his love forgot the heatOf conflict, and sat reconciledIn patience of defeat.

Before me now I see him rise--A face, that seventy years had snowedWith winter, where the kind blue eyesLike hospitable fires glowed:A small gray man whose heart was large,And big with knowledge learned of need;A heart, the hard world made its targe,That never ceased to bleed.

He knew all Nature. Yea, he knewWhat virtue lay within each flower,What tonic in the dawn and dew,And in each root what magic power:What in the wild witch-hazel treeReversed its time of blossoming,And clothed its branches goldenlyIn fall instead of spring.

He knew what made the firefly glowAnd pulse with crystal gold and flame;And whence the bloodroot got its snow,And how the bramble's perfume came:He understood the water's wordAnd grasshopper's and cricket's chirr;And of the music of each birdHe was interpreter.

He kept no calendar of days,But knew the seasons by the flowers;And he could tell you by the raysOf sun or stars the very hours.He probed the inner mysteriesOf light, and knew the chemic changeThat colors flowers, and what isTheir fragrance wild and strange.

If some old oak had power of speech,It could not speak more wildwood lore,Nor in experience further reach,Than he who was a tree at core.Nature was all his heritage,And seemed to fill his every need;Her features were his book, whose pageHe never tired to read.

He read her secrets that no manHas ever read and never will,And put to scorn the charlatanWho botanizes of her still.He kept his knowledge sweet and clean,And questioned not of why and what;And never drew a line betweenWhat's known and what is not.

He was most gentle, good, and wise;A simpler heart earth never saw:His soul looked softly from his eyes,And in his speech were love and awe.

Yet Nature in the end deniedThe thing he had not asked for--fame!Unknown, in poverty he died,And men forget his name.