Husbandry and Worship

Clear the twitch-grass, clear the scrub;
Ploughs the soddened soil shall grub.
Thousand couples weed the ground,
Crossing swampy field and bound:
There the master, there the son,
Younger sons, aye every one;
Strong men here, assistants there.
Hear them o'er their (mid-day) fare.
Husbands eye their wives with pride,
Wives cling to their husbands' side.
Now the sharpened shares are in;
On South Acres they begin.
Sown is grain, of every kind:
Living germs in all enshrined.
Bursting now, in faultless rows,
Succulent and tall it grows.

'Mid the young and thriving grain
Weeders wade, a numerous train.
Last, the reapers, band on band,
Pile the produce on the land,
Till the stacks unnumbered stand.
Liquor sweet and strong 'twill brew,
'Gainst the time when gifts be due
To departed dame and sire,
And for what all rites require.
Fragrant odour thence doth rise
That a nation glorifies;
While the pungent perfume cheers
Men in their declining years.
Not that here alone 'tis so,
Nor that now alone 'tis so: —
Thus it was long long ago.