The Ploughman And His Sons.

[1]      The farmer's patient care and toil      Are oftener wanting than the soil.      A wealthy ploughman drawing near his end,      Call'd in his sons apart from every friend,      And said, 'When of your sire bereft,      The heritage our fathers left      Guard well, nor sell a single field.      A treasure in it is conceal'd:      The place, precisely, I don't know,      But industry will serve to show.      The harvest past, Time's forelock take,      And search with plough, and spade, and rake;      Turn over every inch of sod,      Nor leave unsearch'd a single clod.'      The father died. The sons - and not in vain -      Turn'd o'er the soil, and o'er again;      That year their acres bore      More grain than e'er before.      Though hidden money found they none,      Yet had their father wisely done,      To show by such a measure,      That toil itself is treasure.