Classic Poem

A farmer-man (elect of those)
Who pays his way and as he goes
Evolves the best from what he knows;

Who, with the soil, the sun, the rain,
Blends sweat of brow and thought of brain,
To bring the harvest round again;

Who seeks not melons on his trees,
Nor looks for butter to his bees,
Nor asks the help of Hercules;

Mayhap, beside his firelight,
May read the rhyme that here I write,
And find the reason fit him quite.

A farmer, let his eye command
The course of trade from hand to hand
That bore his last crop from the land;

Across the far off, rolling seas
To rattling mills that rival these
In roar and much machineries;

Till there, by growing strong and vast —
And thence, by spreading far and fast,
Its web enwrap'd the world at last.

As though the little " pod " might hold
A nation's welfare manifold,
A kingdom's coffered peace and gold;

And stretching out from zone to zone,
And blent with empires blood and bone,
Outweigh the scepter, crown and throne!

Well sped! a blessing on its flight,
If so beneath its pinions white
It bears the message " Peace and Light! "

Well sped! a blessing on its way!
'Twas work for work, 'twas worth for pay,
So prosper I, and prosper they!

But let the farmer, thoughtful eyed,
Survey the still returning tide,
For his on the water's wide!

And like the fisherman that got
A giant in a small quart pot,
Behold the giant that is — not!

From yonder where the spindle hums
Mid gliding bands and whirling drums,
One giant dwindles as he comes.

The farmer's pay! perplexed with cost,
And taxed from pillow unto post,
Of all the profits dwindles most.

How knows he that the plow he sent
Throat deep in its brown element
Was " taxed " at all, or what per cent.?

His iron taxed to rottenness —
His liquors till their " brands " express
A " poison " and a " nastiness! "

Rope, bagging, sugar, coffee, tea,
Hat, coat, shirt, boots and breeches, he
Pays tax on tax unendingly!

Nor dreams he of a tax allowed
To knit its greed within his shroud,
Though naked famine o'er it bowed,

That someone, in a far off land,
Might forge at ease the iron band
Which bows his back and binds his hand!

He only knows his crop is spent,
Nor " reckons " if the money went
To old Joe Brown or Government!

If at the time his crop he sold
One-third the price in yellow gold
And been purloined it would have told

Upon his pocket just the same;
For tariff, though it hides its shame
Is stealing by another name.

To Him, I'd ban his household bliss,
His children's love, and his wife's kiss,
Until he vows to think of this!

And this thing brings an arm of aid
Against the tariffs that invade
His peace, his purse, his toil, his trade.