260 BERKSHIRE SOCIETY. 



his pursuits led him to send in to the committee, the following 

 lines, which, it is hoped, will be accepted, as a grateful tribute 

 to the noble art, whose successful champions are now to be 

 named and rewarded. 



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 smootli, fresh furrow opens deep and wide j 



Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves, 



Mellow and dark tlie ridgy cornfield cleaves ; 



Up the steep hill-side, where the laboring train 



Slants tlie long track that scores the level plain ; 



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, tlie 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 tasselled corn : 

 Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain. 

 Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. 



