Page:Poems Cook.djvu/403

There's the thick and dingled cover
 Where the hare and pheasant play,
There are sheets of rosy clover,
 There are hedges crown'd with May;
There are vines all dark and gushing,
 There are orchards ripe and red,
There are herds of wild deer crushing
 The heath-bells as they tread.
And ye, who count in money
 The value these may be,
Your hives but hold my honey,
 For "they all belong to me."

Ye cannot shut the tree in,
 Ye cannot hide the hills,
Ye cannot wall the sea in,
 Ye cannot choke, the rills;
The corn will only nestle
 In the broad arms of the sky,
The clover crop must wrestle
 With the common wind, or die.
And while these stores of treasure
 Are spread where I may see,
By God's high, bounteous pleasure,
 "They all belong to me."

What care I for the profit
 The stricken stem may yield?
I have the shadow of it
 While upright in the field.
What reck I of the riches
 The mill-stream gathers fast,
While I bask in shady niches,
 And see the brook go past?

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