Through vales of grass and mends of flowers Our ploughs their furrows made, While on the hills the sun and showers Of changeful April played. We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain Beneath the sun of May, And frightened from our sprouting grain The robber crows away. All through the long, bright days of June Its leaves grew green and fair, And waved in hot midsummer's noon Its soft and yellow hair. And now, with autumn's moonlit eves, Its harvest-time has come, We pluck away the frosted leaves, And bear the treasure home. There, when the snows about us drift, And winter winds are cold, Fair hands the broken grain shall sift, And knead its meal of gold. Let vapid idlers loll in silk Around their costly board; Give us the bowl of samp and milk, By homespun beauty poured! Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth Sends up its smoky curls, Who will not thank the kindly earth, And bless our farmer girls! Then shame on all the proud and vain, Whose folly laughs to scorn The blessing of our hardy grain, Our wealth of golden corn. Let earth withhold her goodly root, Let mildew blight the rye, Give to the worm the orchard's fruit, The wheat-field to the fly. But let the good old crop adorn The hills our fathers trod; Still let us, for his golden corn, Send up our thanks to God! 1847. THE REFORMER. ALL grim and soiled and brown with tan, I saw a Strong One, in his wrath, Smiting the godless shrines of man Along his path. The Church, beneath her trembling dome, Essayed in vain her ghostly charm Wealth shook within his gilded home With strange alarm. Fraud from his secret chambers fled Before the sunlight bursting in Sloth drew her pillow o'er her head To drown the din. "Spare," Art implored, "yon holy pile; That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;" Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle, Cried out, "Forbear!" Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, Groped for his old accustomed stone, Leaned on his staff, and wept to find His seat o'erthrown. Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, O'erhung with paly locks of gold,-- "Why smite," he asked in sad surprise, "The fair, the old?" Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke, Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam; Shuddering and sick of heart I woke, As from a dream. I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled, The Waster seemed the Builder too; Upspringing from the ruined Old I saw the New. 'T was but the ruin of the bad,-- The wasting of the wrong and ill; Whate'er of good the old time had Was living still. Calm grew the brows of him I feared; The frown which awed me passed away, And left behind a smile which cheered Like breaking day. The grain grew green on battle-plains, O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow; The slave stood forging from his chains The spade and plough. Where frowned the fort, pavilions gay And cottage windows, flower-entwined, Looked out upon the peaceful bay And hills behind.