The Farmer is the lord of lands,
The birth-right baron of the soil,
Although the callous-badge of toil
He wears upon his brawny hands.
Woods, fields and streams, are his demesne,
The open sky his temple-dome-
The altar of his love the home
Where rules the priestess and the queen.
Like all of Nature's worshippers,
He finds her treasures at his feet,
And feels her warm life-pulses beat,
And makes his life a part of hers.
As Dawn unbars the gates of day,
To ope the highway of the king,
He wakens when the sparrows sing,
And rises with the robin's lay.
He traces in the mellow mold,
Where'er his gleaming plowshare runs
Dark lines for summer rains and suns
To print in characters of gold.
His wheat-fields glow like skies of morn,
And pasture-lands, and meadows green,
And fruitful orchards intervene,
Encircled by the bannered corn.
He watches, as the days go by-
Like grenadiers in single file-
The blossoms blow, the valleys smile;
Or notes the tumult of the sky-
The lightning trim with fiery braid
The foldings of a mantle-cloud,
And thunders rolling far and loud,
Like echoes of a cannonade.
With rosy health, and wealth increased,
The fairest fruits before him spread,
He sits at table at the head-
The proud Macgregor of the feast.
Good genii for him conspire
To foil the troubles that annoy,
And press the wine of every joy
Into the cup of his desire.
The pent up dwellers in the town-
That theater of petty strife-
Know little how his larger life
Keeps many a brood of follies down.
And so I hold, and justly call
This sturdy, independent man
The foremost in the social plan-
The helper, and the hope of all.
