The Philosophy of Despair



by David Starr Jordan




To
John Maxson Stillman

In Token of Good Cheer



A darkening sky and a whitening sea,
And the wind in the palm trees tall;
Soon or late comes a call for me,
Down from the mountain or up from the sea,
Then let me lie where I fall.

And a friend may write - for friends there be,
On a stone from the gray sea wall,
"Jungle and town and reef and sea -
I loved God's Earth and His Earth loved me,
Taken for all in all."