Poems (Trask)/The Farmer
THE FARMER.
God's blessing rest upon the man Who tills the bounteous land, And strews the yellow grain broadcast With free, ungrudging hand; Who makes the barren moorland smile With wheat and golden corn, The verdant grass to spring, at will, Where lurked the worthless thorn.
Oh, bless his toil with full success! Let soft and gentle rains Revive his thirsty pasture hills And fertilize his plains! And send the sunshine down to warm The frosty breast of earth, That crimson wealth of clover blooms May spring to odorous birth!
An independent life is his, Fraught but with honest gains,—Wrung not from pale-faced, widowed ones, Or orphans' hunger pains. Honest and fearless, free and glad, A very prince is he! At peace with God, in love with truth, With man in harmony.
His lot is cast in nature's fanes, Beneath a lucky star,—What is't to him that railroad stocks Are quoted under par? The banks may break, canals burst up, And mining sections fail; He's left to him his wide-spread fields, His threshing-floors, and flail.
His children throng about his knee When gloaming-time creeps on, And hang around his sturdy neck, To kiss him one by one. The ruddiest cheeks and sweetest lips, The brightest eyes, are theirs,—The rarest smile in all the town The farmer's daughter wears.
God bless the farmer! bless him well! A royal life he owns! He reads his lore from mountain heights, His sermons from the stones; His college halls are nature's wilds, And gorgeous summer sky,—The vast cathedral where he prays Is heaven's arched canopy.
Let the rich scorn his sunburnt hands, And cheek so rough and brown; But when the proud man at his feast In courtly glee sits down, The luscious grape, the downy peach, The wine in silver can, The snowy bread—he owes them all Unto the husbandman.