University of Virginia Library

THE BLACKBERRY FARM.

Nature gives with freëst hands
Richest gifts to poorest lands:
When the lord has sown his last
And his field's to desert pass'd,
She begins to claim her own,
And—instead of harvests flown,
Sunburnt sheaves and golden ears—
Sends her hardier pioneers;
Barbarous brambles, outlaw'd seeds,
The first families of weeds
Fearing neither sun nor wind,
With the flowers of their kind
(Outcasts of the garden-bound),
Colonize the expended ground,
Using (none her right gainsay)
Confiscations of decay:
Thus she clothes the barren place,
Old disgrace, with newer grace.
Title-deeds, which cover lands
Ruled and reap'd by buried hands,
She—disowning owners old,
Scorning their “to have and hold”—
Takes herself; the mouldering fence
Hides with her munificence;
O'er the crumbled gatepost twines
Her proprietary vines;
On the doorstep of the house
Writes in moss “Anonymous,”
And, that beast and bird may see,
“This is Public property;”
To the bramble makes the sun
Bearer of profusion:
Blossom-odors breathe in June
Promise of her later boon,
And in August's brazen heat
Grows the prophecy complete—
Lo, her largess glistens bright,
Blackness diamonded with light!
Then, behold, she welcomes all
To her annual festival:
“Mine the fruit but yours as well,”
Speaks the Mother Miracle;
“Rich and poor are welcome; come,
Make to-day millennium
In my garden of the sun:
Black and white to me are one.
This my freehold use content—
Here no landlord rides for rent;
I proclaim my jubilee,
In my Black Republic, free.
Come,” she beckons; “Enter, through
Gates of gossamer, doors of dew
(Lit with Summer's tropic fire),
My Liberia of the brier.”