THE PLOW 
By WILL H. OGILVIE 
From the London "Spectator" 
From Egypt behind my oxen, with their stately step and slow, 
Northward and east and west I went to the desert sand and the snow; 
Down through the centuries, one by one, turning the clod to the shower, 
Till there's never a land beneath the sun but has blossomed behind the power. 
I slid through the sodden rice-fields with my grunting, humpbacked steers: 
I turned the turf of the Tiber plain in Rome's imperial years; 
I was left in the half-drawn furrow when Cincinnatus came, 
Giving his farm for the Forum's stir to save his nation's name. 
Over the seas to the north I went — white cliffs and a seaboard blue; 
And my path was glad in the English grass as my stout, red Devons drew; 
My path was glad in the English grass, for behind me rippled and curled 
The corn that was life to the sailormen that sailed the ships of the world, 
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Then the new lands called me westward; I found on the prairies wide 
A toil to my stoutest daring and a foe to test my pride; 
But I stooped my strength to the stiff, black loam, and I found my labor sweet 
As I loosened the soil that was trampled firm by a million buffaloes' feet. 
Then farther away to the northward; outward and outward still 
(But idle I crossed the Rockies, for there no plow may till!), 
Till I won to the plains unending, and there on the edge of the snow 
I ribbed them the fenceless wheat-fields, and taught them to reap and sow. 
The sun of the Southland called me; I turned her the rich brown lines 
Where the paramatta peach trees grow and her green Mildura vines; 
I drove her cattle before me, her dust, and her dying sheep, 
I painted her rich plains golden, and taught her to sow and reap. 
From Egypt behind my oxen, with stately step and slow, 
I have carried your weightiest burdens, ye toilers that reap and sow. 
I am the ruler — the king — and I hold the world in fee; 
Sword upon sword may ring, but the triumph shall rest with me. 
