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Ode For An Agricultural Celebration.

By William Cullen Bryant

Topics: classic

Far back in the ages,     The plough with wreaths was crowned;     The hands of kings and sages     Entwined the chaplet round;     Till men of spoil disdained the toil     By which the world was nourished,     And dews of blood enriched the soil     Where green their laurels flourished:     Now the world her fault repairs,     The guilt that stains her story;     And weeps her crimes amid the cares     That formed her earliest glory.     The proud throne shall crumble,     The diadem shall wane,     The tribes of earth shall humble     The pride of those who reign;     And War shall lay his pomp away;     The fame that heroes cherish,     The glory earned in deadly fray     Shall fade, decay, and perish.     Honour waits, o'er all the Earth,     Through endless generations,     The art that calls her harvests forth,     And feeds the expectant nations.

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Author:William Cullen Bryant

"Far back in the ages,..." by William Cullen Bryant

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William Cullen Bryant

About William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) was an American poet and journalist. His poem "Thanatopsis" (1817) was the first major American poem. He edited the New York Evening Post for 50 years and was a champion of American poetry.

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