The Farmer and His Sons

Work, work, my boys, with hand and mind!

Your labors you will fruitful find.

A husbandman, about to die,

Call’d on his children to come nigh:

“I leave,” he says, “a small estate,

But wherewithal to make it great:

For know, a treasure it contains,

If you to search will take the pains.”

He died. The sons dug all the ground,

And there no hidden treasure found;

But so productive was the soil,

The crop by far o’erpaid the toil.

Says one, when they the corn had sold,

“This treasure ’twas our sire foretold!”