1844. Scatter ashes on thy head, Tears of burning sorrow shed, Earth! and be by Pity led To Love's fold; Ere they block the very door And will hush for naught but gore,- THE LANDLORD. WHAT boot your houses and your lands? In spite of close-drawn deed and fence, Like water, 'twixt your cheated hands, They slip into the graveyard's sands And mock your ownership's pretence. How shall you speak to urge your right, Choked with that soil for which you lust? The bit of clay, for whose delight You grasp, is mortgaged, too; Death might Foreclose this very day in dust. Fence as you please, this plain poor man, Whose only fields are in his wit, Who shapes the world, as best he can, According to God's higher plan, Owns you, and fences as is fit. Though yours the rents, his incomes wax From factory tall to woodman's axe, He takes you from your easy-chair, And what he plans, that you must do ; You sleep in down, eat dainty fare,— He mounts his crazy garret-stair And starves, the landlord over you. Feeding the clods your idlesse drains, You make more green six feet of soil; His fruitful word, like suns and rains, Partakes the seasons' bounteous pains, And toils to lighten human toil. Your lands, with force or cunning got, Shrink to the measure of the grave; But Death himself abridges not The tenures of almighty thought, The titles of the wise and brave. TO A PINE-TREE. FAR up on Katahdin thou towerest, Purple-blue with the distance and vast ; Like a cloud o'er the lowlands thou lowerest, In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened, When whole mountains Swoop valeward. |