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Scarcely one in the land has kept its promise. Not merely the Brook Farm and Fourierite communities, but now the community generally has failed. But there is the moonshine still, serene, beneficent and unchanged.

Thoreau was no pessimist. He complained neither of men nor of destiny–he felt that he was getting out of life all that was his due. His remarks might be sharp and his words sarcastic, but in them there was no bitterness. He made life for none more difficult–he added to no one’s burdens. Sympathy with Nature, pride, buoyancy, self-sufficiency, were his prevailing traits. The habit of his mind was hopeful.

His wit and good-nature were his to the last, and when asked if he had made his peace with God, he replied, “I have never quarreled with Him.”

He died, aged forty-four, in the modest home of his mother. The village school was dismissed that the scholars might attend the funeral, and three hundred children walked in the procession to Sleepy Hollow. Emerson made an address at the grave; Alcott read selections from Thoreau’s own writings; and Louisa Alcott read this poem, composed for the occasion:

We sighing said, “Our Pan is dead;
His pipe hangs mute beside the river,
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,
But Music’s airy voice is fled.
Spring mourns as for untimely frost:
The bluebird chants a requiem;
The willow-blossom waits for him;–
The Genius of the wood is lost.”

Then from the flute, untouched by hands,
There came a low, harmonious breath:
“For such as he there is no death;
His life the eternal life commands;
Above man’s aims his nature rose.
The wisdom of a just content
Made one small spot a continent,
And turned to poetry life’s prose.

“To him no vain regrets belong,
Whose soul, that finer instrument,
Gave to the world no poor lament,
But wood-notes ever sweet and strong.
O lonely friend! he still will be
A potent presence, though unseen–
Steadfast, sagacious, and serene;
Seek not for him–he is with thee.”