This stanza is a detraction from the poem as we know it, and
assuredly its author has a right to drop it. Concerning the
fifth stanza, Mr. Burroughs says he has never liked it, and has
often substituted one which he wrote a few years ago. The stanza
he would reject is--
The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder heights;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delights.
The one he would offer instead--
The law of love binds every heart,
And knits it to its utmost kin,
Nor can our lives flow long apart
From souls our secret souls would win.
And yet he is not satisfied with this; he says it is too subtle and
lacks the large, simple imagery of the original lines.
The legion who cherish this poem in their hearts are justly incensed
whenever they come across a copy of it to which some one, a few
years ago, had the effrontery to add this inane stanza:--
Serene I fold my hands and wait,
Whate'er the storms of life may be,
Faith guides me up to heaven's gate,
And love will bring my own to me.
One of Mr. Burroughs's friends (Joel Benton), himself a poet, in
an article tracing the vicissitudes of this poem, shows pardonable
indignation at the "impudence and hardihood of the unmannered
meddler" who tacked on the "heaven's gate" stanza, and adds:--
The lyric as Burroughs wrote it embodies a motive, or concept, that
has scarcely been surpassed for amenability to poetic treatment, and
for touching and impressive point.
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