William Cullen Bryant

Ode for an Agricultural Celebration

Far back in the ages,
    The plough with wreaths was crowned;
The hands of kings and sages
    Entwined the chaplet round;
Till men of spoil disdained the toil
    By which the world was nourished,
And dews of blood enriched the soil
    Where green their laurels flourished:
—Now the world her fault repairs—
    The guilt that stains her story;
And weeps her crimes amid the cares
    That formed her earliest glory.

The proud throne shall crumble,
    The diadem shall wane,
The tribes of earth shall humble
    The pride of those who reign;
And War shall lay his pomp away;—
    The fame that heroes cherish,
The glory earned in deadly fray
    Shall fade, decay, and perish.
Honour waits, o'er all the Earth,
    Through endless generations,
The art that calls her harvests forth,
    And feeds the expectant nations.