Be this the burden of our strain
The clouded sun will shine again.
J. C. PRINCE, 1808
(WRITTEN FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF AN
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.)
CLEAR the brown path to meet his coulter's gleam!
Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,
With toil's bright dew-drops on his sun-burnt brow,
The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!
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 hill-side, where the labouring train
Slants the long track that scores the level plain;
Through the moist valley clogg'd 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 labour 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, O heaven-commanded toil,
That fill thy 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!
We stain 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 tassell'd corn;
Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain,
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.
Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms
Round the fresh clasp of thine embracing arms,
Let not our virtues in thy love decay,
And thy fond weakness waste our strength away.
No! by these hills, whose banners now display'd;
In blazing cohorts Autumn has array'd;
By yon twin crest, amid the sinking sphere
Last to dissolve, and first to re-appear;
By these fair plains the mountain circle screens,
And feeds in silence from its dark ravines;
True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil
To crown with peace their own untainted soil;
And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind,
If her chain'd bandogs Faction shall unbind,
These stately forms, that bending even now
Bow'd their strong manhood to the humble plough,
Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land-
The same stern iron in the same right hand—
Till Graylock thunders to the parting sun,
The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 1809-
Go read of all that yet have trod
The paths that mortal creatures roam—
The monarch from his high abode,
The herdsman from his tented home;
The seer that future times could hail,
The bard that o'er the harp-strings sigh'd
Go read thou of their closing tale,
And it shall be-THEY DIED.
Go look on all that now exist
In manhood's prime, in beauty's bloom,
The mournful heart, the bosom blest—
They all are destined to the tomb:
Go think on all that yet shall sail
The wave of Time's tumultuous tide-
Their hearts and flesh shall faint and fail,
And tongues shall say—" THEY DIED.”
WILLIAM KNOX, 1789-1825.
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school; and then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow; then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth; and then the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part; the sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well-saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound; last scene of all
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion—
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
W. SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616.
NEVER rail at the world—it is just as we make it,—— We see not the flower if we sow not the seed; And as for ill luck, why it's just as we take it,— The heart that's in earnest no bars can impede. You question the justice which governs man's breast, And say that the search for true friendship is vain ; But remember, this world, though it be not the best, Is the next to the best we shall ever attain.
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