572 -i'* A/jriruIlHrdl Ode. [December, 



AN AGRICULTURAL ODE. 



BY WM. C. BRYANT. 



Far back in ages 



The plough witli wreatlis was crowned, 

 The hands of kings and sages 



Entwined the chaplets round, 

 Till men of spoil 

 Distained the toil 



By which the world was nourished. 

 And blood and pillage were the soil 



In which their laurels flourished. 

 Now the world her fault despairs — 



The gilt that stains her story, 

 And weeps her crimes amid the cares 



That forms her earliest glory. 



The throne shall crumble, 



The diadem shall wane, 

 The tribes of earth shall humble 



The pride of those who reign ; 

 And war shall lay 

 His pomp away ; 



The fame that heroes cherish, 

 The glory earned in deadly fray _ ^- 



Shall fade, decay and perish. 



Honor waits o'er all the earth, ==f?;^' 



Through endless generations — 

 The art that calls the harvest forth, 



And feeds the expectant nations. 



It has been said that grain is treated like infants. When the 

 head becomes heavy it is cradled ; and is generally well thrashed to 

 render it fit for use. 



The telegraph now in operation in the United States consumes 

 annually about 860,000 worth of zinc, $10,000 worth of nitric acid, 

 and §30,000 for mercury, besides other sums for sulphuric acid, &c 



