Amid The Corn

When roasting ears are peeping through
Their silken tassel curls,
When corn leaves glisten in the dew
Like ribbons strewn with pearls;
When Phoebus’ splendor is revealed
And gilds the summer morn,
I love to walk the furrowed field
Among the rows of corn.
It brings to mind those vanished days
In adolescence sweet,
When through familiar seas of maze
With ardent, childish feet
That never tired, the glebe I trod
The “hired man” to warn
Where grew the tares, or where a clod
Obstructed hills of corn.
A happy home upon the farm
In memory holds a place,
That city life with all its charm
Can never quite efface.
O give me back the days of yore!
When I, a farmer born,
In pantalet and pinafore
Grew up amid the corn.
O that I could to nature true
From etiquette relax,
And follow, as I used to do,
Papa’s unerring tracks!
A scholar, who could wield the pen,
Whose honors well were borne,
Was he—this noblest, best of men—
Who plowed and hoed the corn.
I’d rather be, though dumb and droll,
An effigy to-day,
A man of straw upon a pole
To scare the crows away,
Than like a figure fashion-spun
A palace to adorn,
Disdainfully look down on one
Who works amid the corn.