Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

The rude log huts of those who tamed the wild,

Rearing from out the forests they had fell’d

The goodly framework of a fairer state;

The builder’s trowel and the settler’s axe

Are seldom wielded by the selfsame hand;

Ours is the harder task, yet not the less

Shall we receive the blessing for our toil

From the choice spirits of the after-time.

The field lies wide before us, where to reap

The easy harvest of a deathless name,