As kindles now the blazing East Afield I haste, Eager the sickle's feat to play, Sweeping along the stalked fields my widening way; Vexing the eared spires, Pricked with desires, My golden gavels on the stubble spend, And to the fair achievement every member lend, The laughing breeze my colleague in my forte, While the grave sun beams zealous on the sport. Nor doth penurious gain famish my fist, As earing fast it sheds abundant grist, And gleaning damsels kerchief all they list,-- Kindly conceive me friendliest of peers, And glad my brows adorn with yellow ears; The wide-spread field, its sheafed hoard, The lively symbol of their liberal Lord, Whose plenteous crop, and ripe supply Areapéd is of every hand and eye-- An opulent shock for poor humanity. Their garments, too, were home-spun. Every house, the scene of sprightly industry, was Homeric as were the employments in the garden of Alcinous, "Where to encounter feast with housewifery, In one room, numerous women did apply Their several tasks; some apple-colored corn Ground in fair querns, and some did spindles turn; Some work in looms; no hand least rest receives, But all have motion apt as aspen leaves; And from the weeds they wove, so fast they laid And so thick thrust together thread by thread, That the oil of which the wool had drank its fill, Did with his moisture in bright dews distil." It was plain wool and flax which they spun and wove thus innocently, nor suspected the web of sophistries that was to be twisted and coiled about the countries' liberties from a coming rival. "The weed which, planted long ago by the kings of Tyre, made their city a great nation, their merchantmen princes, and spread the Tyrian dye throughout the world; of which Solomon obtained a branch, and made his little kingdom the admiration of surrounding nations; of which Alexander sowed the seed in the city to which he gave his name, and Constantine transplanted to Constantinople; which the first Edward sowed on the banks of the Thames, and Elizabeth lived to see blossom through the nourishment which her enlightened mind procured, not only from the original soil of the Levant but from the eastern and newly discovered western world, as well as from the North,"--this famous plant, thus cherished by kings, has now become KING, and wields its sceptre over the most cultivated and prosperous nations of the earth; its history for the last half century being more closely woven with civilization, than perhaps any other commodity known to commerce. And whether it shall be woven into robes of coronation or the shroud of freedom, for the freest of Republics, the fortunes of races, the present moment is determining.