The Ploughman and His Sons
A wealthy Ploughman drawing near his end
Call’d in his Sons apart from every friend,
And said, “When of your sire bereft,
The heritage our fathers left
Guard well, nor sell a single field.
A treasure in it is conceal’d:
The place, precisely, I don’t know,
But industry will serve to show.
The harvest past. Time’s forelock take,
And search with plough, and spade, and rake;
Turn over every inch of sod,
Nor leave unsearch’d a single clod.”
The father died. The Sons in vain—
Turn’d o’er the soil, and o’er again;
That year their acres bore
More grain than e’er before.
Though hidden money found they none,
Yet had their Father wisely done,
To show by such a measure
That toil itself is treasure.
The farmer’s patient care and toil
Are oftener wanting than the soil.