Man with a Hoe. — ca. 1863 —

He leans on the short handle, knotted oak,Its flat blade pressed on brambled clay and stone.A boulder  shoulders thorns up from the soilWhile oxen plow a far-off pastoral farm. Whose stubble-fires smoke white toward skies in haze.He dominates the land as serf and lord,The subject monarch of his stark domain,His thistle-crown root-bound in freehold earth. Not fallen from some paradise whose cropsTurned golden while he plucked a harp’s ripe strings,He’s come down long hard centuries the same,Ma...