THE MAN BEHIND THE PLOW.

THE MAN BEHIND THE PLOW.
500.5

Bards have praised in song and lay men whose office is to siny.
Men who go untinching where their fooman lurk:
But the man behind the plow is a hero, too, I trow.
He’s the man that keeps them while they do the work.
Oh the man behind the plow with the sun-tan on his brow,
His sole honor is the Inbor he has done:
But to shoot their brethren down is the glory and the crown
Of a million men who stand behind the gun.
It is very brave, no doubt, with the enemy in rout
To follow war-flags leading on before:
But the man who stays at home tulling the reluctant loam
Is the man who keeps the man who goes to war,
It is valorous to go where the warlike trumpets blow
And the deadly shrapnel on its course is sped,
But it seems to me this man follows out a nobler plan
Than the man who knocks his brother in the head!
Then remember, when you hear drums’ and trumpets’ martial cheer
That upon some little farm the work is done
In a simple humdrum way day suc- ceeding toilsome day
That supports the man that marches with a gun.
Yes! apply it further still, all the shapers of world-will,
All the kings and princes who exact a bow,
All the fanfare of estate on which servile legions wait,
All depend upon the man behind the plow.
-Harry H. Kemp..