"tS}^ &(xi of ti)t S^cxyib 



again, — when all who want to live, who want to 

 write, draw directly upon life's first sources. To live 

 simply, and out of the soil ! To live by one's own 

 ploughing, and to write ! 



Instead, how do we live? How do I live? Nine 

 months in the year by talking bravely about books 

 that I have not written. Between times I live on the 

 farm, hoe, and think, and write, — whenever the hoe- 

 ing is done. And where is my poem to a mouse? 



Its silly wa's the win's are strewin ! 

 With a whole farm o' foggage green, and all the 

 year before me, I am not sure that I could build a 

 single line of genuine poetry. But I am certain that, 

 in living close to the fields, we are close to the source 

 of true and great poetry, where each of us, at times, 

 hears lines that Burns and Wordsworth left unmea- 

 sured, — lines that we at least may live into song. 



Now, I have done just what my biological friend 

 knew I would do, — made over my course of nature- 

 study into a pleasant but idle waiting for inspiration. 

 I have frankly turned poet ! No, not unless Gilbert 

 White and Jefferies,Thoreau, Burroughs, Gibson, Tor- 

 rey, and Rowland Robinson are poets. But they are 

 poets. We all are, — even the biologist, with half a 



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