Indian's Corn
Indian's corn! that thy growing we hear,
Keepst thou his history typed in thy ear?
Past all antiquity, papyrus-rolled.
Tasseled for combat and columned in gold.
Stays the red Indian's spirit in thee,
Tall, like his stature, and simple as he,
Clothing our continent green as the waves,
Rolling in ranks over Indian graves?
O'er thee the West wind sighs with a sound
Like the fife's music the distance has drowned,
And when the partridge's reveille comes
Almost we hear aboriginal drums.
Race stretching back to the hemisphere's morn!
Thou hast receded to rise in thy corn
That was a maze till the plough broke the hoes
And taught thee tactics in squares and in rows.
Not the Egyptian maize was thy sire!
Thou drank the suns while the rocks rose in fire—
Thou, North American, towered in green,
Shading the pumpkin and climbed by the bean!
I was a boy in the parsonage born,
Earning first money by dropping the corn;
Thou, my godfather, when coppers were slack,
Dropped a gold coin in my Benjamin's sack!—
Bought me a flag and a drum and a sword,
Mustered my squad by the house of the Lord,
Marched me to glory for which boys are born,
Armed with muskets of stalks of the corn.
I have seen War when the soldier and steed
Fared side by side on the Indian feed,
And when the fever foe struck us forlorn
Furloughed him far with the juice of the corn.
Back of the battery's rifles of steel,
Manning the guns is the Indian meal,
While the spare horses quietly graze
On the corn fodder they tramp from the blaze.
Halts the whole camp and the bugles are still,
When the corn forage is ground at the mill;
When the corn pone and the Johnny cake steam,
See the white eyes at the Headquarters gleam!
Then the black cook for the General's sons
Pops some sweet corn like their miniature guns,
Butters the slappers beneath the tree,
And bakes brown crust on the hominy.
In the tent hospital's evening hush
List how the wounded lap corn in their mush!
Proudly the surgeon and chaplain do march
Clothed in right minds by the corn in the starch!
Glucose in beer with the yeast foams high,
Here's to the corn starch we eat for pie!
Homesick men feel your poor hearts throb
When lights the camp fire the luminous cob.
Note the chickens around the corn,
Stepping out clean like to soldiers born,
And their drum major, the Cock, strides free,
Arching his toes, like Terpsichore!
Stragglers that find but one ear to a stalk
Come on a scarecrow and startle and balk;
Red-tufted blackbirds pick into the sheath
To the corn rows like the Vivandier's teeth.
Meal for the scrapple is winter camp luck,
Butter and pork pack like fruit in the shuck,
Even the oysters grow fat on the meal
Which in his bait helps the fisherman's reel.
Cornfields, wave! and the nations feed!
Better than gold mines is thy seed!
Let us think as thy fife strains roll
Indian spirits are in thy soul.
Indian corn with one stalk to one ear.
Soldiers with cartridge boxes appear;
Piled in the shock for the air to dry,
Indian wigwams, they rustle the sky.
Rabbit and rat gnaw the shocks from the ground
Till bursts the bay of the nose-guided hound,
Then o'er the cornfield bounding they go,
Cawed at derisively by the safe crow.
How the shucked ears piled along the ploughed mould
Seem by the pumpkins like copper and gold:
Gold grains in rows as if lined by a rule,
Coined in a foundry and milled by a tool!
O, if money could feed like the corn,
If duplicated like grains we were born,
God had pronounced the creation good,
Famine would never mildew the food!
Blades and tassels would not mean strife,
Cartridge boxes fire rounds of life,
Muskets be stacked in the peaceful morn,
Cultivators would weed but corn!
Over the wigwams smoky is born
Indian summer from Indian corn;
Stock in the winter subsists upon bran,
Man unsolders sweet corn from the can.
Beans and corn make the succulent hash,
Papooses suck in their succotash,
Tusks unto teeth as the teething dears
Bite to the cob in their roasting ears.
Cornfields, wave! and the nations feed!
Better than gold mines is thy seed!
Let us think as thy fife strains roll
Indian spirits are in thy soul!
Keepst thou his history typed in thy ear?
Past all antiquity, papyrus-rolled.
Tasseled for combat and columned in gold.
Stays the red Indian's spirit in thee,
Tall, like his stature, and simple as he,
Clothing our continent green as the waves,
Rolling in ranks over Indian graves?
O'er thee the West wind sighs with a sound
Like the fife's music the distance has drowned,
And when the partridge's reveille comes
Almost we hear aboriginal drums.
Race stretching back to the hemisphere's morn!
Thou hast receded to rise in thy corn
That was a maze till the plough broke the hoes
And taught thee tactics in squares and in rows.
Not the Egyptian maize was thy sire!
Thou drank the suns while the rocks rose in fire—
Thou, North American, towered in green,
Shading the pumpkin and climbed by the bean!
I was a boy in the parsonage born,
Earning first money by dropping the corn;
Thou, my godfather, when coppers were slack,
Dropped a gold coin in my Benjamin's sack!—
Bought me a flag and a drum and a sword,
Mustered my squad by the house of the Lord,
Marched me to glory for which boys are born,
Armed with muskets of stalks of the corn.
I have seen War when the soldier and steed
Fared side by side on the Indian feed,
And when the fever foe struck us forlorn
Furloughed him far with the juice of the corn.
Back of the battery's rifles of steel,
Manning the guns is the Indian meal,
While the spare horses quietly graze
On the corn fodder they tramp from the blaze.
Halts the whole camp and the bugles are still,
When the corn forage is ground at the mill;
When the corn pone and the Johnny cake steam,
See the white eyes at the Headquarters gleam!
Then the black cook for the General's sons
Pops some sweet corn like their miniature guns,
Butters the slappers beneath the tree,
And bakes brown crust on the hominy.
In the tent hospital's evening hush
List how the wounded lap corn in their mush!
Proudly the surgeon and chaplain do march
Clothed in right minds by the corn in the starch!
Glucose in beer with the yeast foams high,
Here's to the corn starch we eat for pie!
Homesick men feel your poor hearts throb
When lights the camp fire the luminous cob.
Note the chickens around the corn,
Stepping out clean like to soldiers born,
And their drum major, the Cock, strides free,
Arching his toes, like Terpsichore!
Stragglers that find but one ear to a stalk
Come on a scarecrow and startle and balk;
Red-tufted blackbirds pick into the sheath
To the corn rows like the Vivandier's teeth.
Meal for the scrapple is winter camp luck,
Butter and pork pack like fruit in the shuck,
Even the oysters grow fat on the meal
Which in his bait helps the fisherman's reel.
Cornfields, wave! and the nations feed!
Better than gold mines is thy seed!
Let us think as thy fife strains roll
Indian spirits are in thy soul.
Indian corn with one stalk to one ear.
Soldiers with cartridge boxes appear;
Piled in the shock for the air to dry,
Indian wigwams, they rustle the sky.
Rabbit and rat gnaw the shocks from the ground
Till bursts the bay of the nose-guided hound,
Then o'er the cornfield bounding they go,
Cawed at derisively by the safe crow.
How the shucked ears piled along the ploughed mould
Seem by the pumpkins like copper and gold:
Gold grains in rows as if lined by a rule,
Coined in a foundry and milled by a tool!
O, if money could feed like the corn,
If duplicated like grains we were born,
God had pronounced the creation good,
Famine would never mildew the food!
Blades and tassels would not mean strife,
Cartridge boxes fire rounds of life,
Muskets be stacked in the peaceful morn,
Cultivators would weed but corn!
Over the wigwams smoky is born
Indian summer from Indian corn;
Stock in the winter subsists upon bran,
Man unsolders sweet corn from the can.
Beans and corn make the succulent hash,
Papooses suck in their succotash,
Tusks unto teeth as the teething dears
Bite to the cob in their roasting ears.
Cornfields, wave! and the nations feed!
Better than gold mines is thy seed!
Let us think as thy fife strains roll
Indian spirits are in thy soul!
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