What more
"Of every star that Heaven doth shew
And every hearb that sips the dew"
can the poet spell than all day long you have felt? Has ever poet handled more of life than you? Has he ever gone deeper than the bottom of your furrow, or asked any larger faith than you of your field? Has he ever found anything sweeter or more satisfying than the wholesome toilsome round of the plough?
VII
MERE BEANS
"God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it; he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited."—Isaiah.
"A farmer," said my neighbor, Joel Moore, with considerable finality, "has got to get all he can, and keep all he gets, or die."
"Yes," I replied with a fine platitude; "but he's got to give if he's going to get."