Concord Days. Alcott Amos Bronson

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      False were the muse, did she not bring

      Our village poet's offering —

      Haunts, fields, and groves, weaving his rhymes,

      Leaves verse and fame to coming times.

      "My country, 'tis for thee I strike the lyre;

      My country, wide as is the free wind's flight,

      I prize New England as she lights her fire

      In every Prairie's midst; and where the bright

      Enchanting stars shine pure through Southern night,

      She still is there the guardian on the tower,

      To open for the world a purer hour.

      "Could they but know the wild enchanting thrill

      That in our homely houses fills the heart,

      To feel how faithfully New England's will

      Beats in each artery, and each small part

      Of this great Continent, their blood would start

      In Georgia, or where Spain once sat in state,

      Or Texas, with her lone star, desolate.

      "'Tis a New-England thought, to make this land

      The very home of Freedom, and the nurse

      "Of each sublime emotion; she does stand

      Between the sunny South, and the dread curse

      Of God, who else should make her hearse

      Of condemnation to this Union's life, —

      She stands to heal this plague, and banish strife.

      "I do not sing of this, but hymn the day

      That gilds our cheerful villages and plains,

      Our hamlets strewn at distance on the way,

      Our forests and the ancient streams' domains;

      We are a band of brothers, and our pains

      Are freely shared; no beggar in our roads,

      Content and peace within our fair abodes.

      "In my small cottage on the lonely hill,

      Where like a hermit I must bide my time,

      Surrounded by a landscape lying still

      All seasons through as in the winter's prime,

      Rude and as homely as these verses chime,

      I have a satisfaction which no king

      Has often felt, if Fortune's happiest thing.

      "'Tis not my fortune, which is meanly low,

      'Tis not my merit that is nothing worth,

      'Tis not that I have stores of thought below

      Which everywhere should build up heaven on earth;

      Nor was I highly favored in my birth;

      Few friends have I, and they are much to me,

      Yet fly above my poor society.

      "But all about me live New-England men,

      Their humble houses meet my daily gaze, —

      The children of this land where Life again

      Flows like a great stream in sunshiny ways,

      This is a joy to know them, and my days

      Are filled with love to meditate on them, —

      These native gentlemen on Nature's hem.

      "That I could take one feature of their life,

      Then on my page a mellow light should shine;

      Their days are holidays, with labor rife,

      Labor the song of praise that sounds divine,

      And better, far, than any hymn of mine;

      The patient Earth sets platters for their food,

      Corn, milk, and apples, and the best of good.

      "See here no shining scenes for artist's eye,

      This woollen frock shall make no painter's fame;

      These homely tools all burnishing deny;

      The beasts are slow and heavy, still or tame;

      The sensual eye may think this labor lame;

      'Tis in the man where lies the sweetest art,

      His true endeavor in his earnest part.

      "He meets the year confiding; no great throws,

      That suddenly bring riches, does he use,

      But like Thor's hammer vast, his patient blows

      Vanquish his difficult tasks, he does refuse

      To tread the path, nor know the way he views;

      No sad complaining words he uttereth,

      But draws in peace a free and easy breath.

      "This man takes pleasure o'er the crackling fire,

      His glittering axe subdued the monarch oak,

      He earned the cheerful blaze by something higher

      Than pensioned blows, – he owned the tree he stroke,

      And knows the value of the distant smoke

      When he returns at night, his labor done,

      Matched in his action with the long day's sun.

      "I love these homely mansions, and to me

      A farmer's house seems better than a king's;

      The palace boasts its art, but liberty

      And honest pride and toil are splendid things;

      They carved this clumsy lintel, and it brings

      The man upon its front; Greece hath her art, —

      But this rude homestead shows the farmer's heart.

      "I love to meet him on the frozen road,

      How manly is his eye, as clear as air; —

      He cheers his beasts without the brutal goad,

      His face is ruddy, and his features fair;

      His brave good-day sounds like an honest prayer;

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