The miscellaneous works of David Humphreys :: :: University of Virginia Library

While all your gains the social pact secures,
Columbians! say, what happiness is yours?
Say, ye who, not as tenants, till the soil,
The joys that freemen find in rural toil?

In what blest spot, through all terraqueous space,
Exists a hardier or a happier race?
Ye bid your glebes with future germs rejoice,
And seeds that sleep inhum'd strait hear your voice.
How change the prospects at your blithe command!
Where weeds and brambles stood now flowrets stand.
How blooms the dell, as spreads the rippling rill,
While mottled cattle top the moving hill!
Bid marshall'd maize the tassell'd flag unfold,
And wheat-ears barb their glistening spears with gold:
In northern plains the orchard's produce glow,
Or with its beverage pure the press o'erflow:
In southern climes, beneath a fervid sky,
Savannas, green with rice, refresh the eye;
There, from th' adopted stranger-tree, despoil
The branch that cheers for peace, the fruit with oil.
O'er fens, reform'd, let verdant grass succeed
The blue-ting'd indigo—pestiferous weed!
Where dun, hoed fields, afford subsistence scant
For those who tend Tobago's luxury plant,
Bid other crops with brighter hues be crown'd,
And herb for beast, and bread for man abound.
With little fingers let the children cull,
Like flakes of snow, the vegetable wool;
Or nurse the chrysalis with mulberry leaves,
The worm whose silk the curious artist weaves:
Let buzzing bees display the winnowing wing,
Seek freshest flowers, and rifle all the spring:
Let brimming pails beside the heifers stand,
With milk and honey flow the happy land;
And turn the wildest growth to human use,
Ambrosial sugar find from maple-juice!