First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,
Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod;
Still where he treads the stubborn clods divide,
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide;
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves,
Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves ;
Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train
For the honest grasp of his hand's rough clasp, Slants the long track that scores the level plain,
Has stood by the Good Old Plough.
All honor be, then, to these gray old men,
When at last they are bowed with toil!
Their warfare then o'er, they battle no more,
For they've conquered the stubborn soil.
And the chaplet each wears is his silver hairs;
And ne'er shall the victor's brow
With a laurel crown to the grave go down
Like the sons of the Good Old Plough.
TO THE HARVEST MOON.
PLEASING 't is, O modest Moon!
Now the night is at her noon,
'Neath thy sway to musing lie,
While around the zephyrs sigh,
Fanning soft the sun-tanned wheat,
Ripened by the summer's heat;
Picturing all the rustic's joy
When boundless plenty greets his eye,
And thinking soon,
O modest Moon!
How many a female eye will roam
Along the road,
To see the load,
The last dear load of harvest-home.
Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay,
The patient convoy breaks its destined way;
At every turn the loosening chains resound,
The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round,
Till the wide field one billowy waste appears,
And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.
These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings
The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings;
This is the page whose letters shall be seen,
Changed by the sun to words of living green ;
This is the scholar whose immortal pen
Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men;
These are the lines that heaven-commanded Toil
Shows on his deed, the charter of the soil !
O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast
Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest,
How thy sweet features, kind to every clime,
Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of Time!
Westain thy flowers, - they blossom o'er the dead:
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;
O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn,
Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn ;
Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain,
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.
Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms
Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms,
Let not our virtues in thy love decay,
And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away
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