The Good Old Plow
Let them laud the notes that in music float
Through the bright and glittering hall,
While the amorous whirl of the hair’s bright curl
Round the shoulders of beauty fall;
But dearest to me is the song of the tree,
And the rich and the blossoming bough—
Oh! these are the sweets which the rustic greets,
As he follows the good old plow.
All honor be, then, to those gray old men,
When at last they are bowed with toil;
Their warfare then o’er, they battle no more,
For they’ve conquered the stubborn soil;
And the chaplet he wears is his silver hairs,
And ne’er shall the victor’s brow
With a laurel crown in his grave go down,
Like the sons of the good old plow.