THE farmer drives his team afield, and whistles as he goes. 'Twas thus some bygone poet spieled, of things no poet knows. Few poets ever pushed a mule across a rocky farm, or, laboring with rusty tool, disabled back and arm. Burns was the only farmer bard I can remember now; and he believed the life too hard, and gladly soaked his plow. I've never heard a farmer lift his voice in ardent song, except when, at the noonday shift, he heard the dinner gong. I used to drag my weary bones the furrowed field along, and I put up a thousand groans, where I turned loose one song. The farmer has so much to do, before the day takes wing, so many errands to pursue, he has no time to sing. He only whistles now and then, when he would call the dog, to chase from out the corn again, some stray, bone-headed hog. His eyes are fixed upon the sky, to note the weather signs, for rain will rust his growing rye, and spoil his pumpkin vines; and drouth will kill the beans and peas he planted in the spring; and, thinking over things like these, he fails to smile and sing. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A PENNY'S WORTH OF POESY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 82. AL-RAWUF by EDWIN ARNOLD THE EAGLE OF SONG by BACCHYLIDES EPITAPH ON TWO YOUNG MEN NAMED LEITCH IN CROSSING THE RIVER SOUTHESK by JAMES BEATTIE PORTRAIT SONNETS: 4 by HENRY BELLAMANN TO G. TRUSTRUM by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN GLIMPSES OF CHILDHOOD: 4. EARLY LOVES by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON |