Joel Benton

"Sea-like in billowy distance, far away The half-broke prairies stretch on every hand; How wide the circuit of their summer day— What measureless acres of primeval land, Treeless and birdless, by no eyesight spanned!"

"Looking along the horizon's endless line, Man seems a pigmy in these realms of space; ... Here are soft grasses, flowers of tender hue, Palimpsests of the old and coming race."

"His cherished woods are mute. The stream glides down The hill as when I knew it years ago; The dark, pine arbor with its priestly gown Stands hushed, as if our grief it still would show."

"Nor moves his pen our heedless nation now, Which, sworn to justice, stirred the people so. In some far world his much-loved face must glow With rapture still. This breeze once fanned his brow. This is the peaceful Mecca all men know!"

"Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite All are on their rounds to-night,— In the wan moon's silver ray Thrives their helter-skelter play."

"Don't we all, of long ago, By the ruddy fireplace glow, In the kitchen and the hall, Those queer, cooflike pranks recall? Eery shadows were they then— But to-night they come again; Were we once more but sixteen, Precious would be Halloween."

"A ball of fire shoots through the tamarack In scarlet splendor, on voluptuous wings; Delirious joy the pyrotechnist brings, Who marks for us high summer's almanac. How instantly the red-coat hurtles back!"

"Winged soul of beauty, tropic in desire, Thy love seems alien in our northern zone; Thou giv'st to our green lands a burst of fire And callest back the fables we disown. The hot equator thou mightst well inspire, Or stand above some Eastern monarch’s throne."

"Bring cypress, rosemary and rue For him who kept his rudder true; Who went at dawn to that high star Where Washington and Lincoln are!"

"The history of land-ownership ... is as strikingly a history of losses as it is of profits. We see the successes, as we see the ships which float on the ocean, while the unnumbered wrecks in both cases are out of thought and beyond vision."

"If it is to have the fat meat in its pudding, on what principle can it free itself from responsibility for the lean?"

"Wealth itself is an inequality which renders possible the most lurid contrast in conditions of human happiness. ... But you can not abolish wealth without punishing economy and thrift, and taking away the incentive to rise in the world. You can only abolish it by abolishing civilization, to which wealth and poverty are incidents; and poverty you can not abolish, either while civilization lasts or after it is destroyed."

"Nothing was ever truer...than the statement, "The poor you have always with you.""

"The effort to make things equal is a problem too great for any but angels and seraphs to deal with. No merely human device can touch it without breaking or deranging the mainspring of civilization."

"The man who burned up his barn filled with grain to destroy a hornets' nest is not alone in the world. He now has a cult and a body of disciples."

"For the people to buy themselves out, would be the only honest way of transfer; but this would be like a man standing in a corn-basket and trying to lift himself by its handles over the fence."

"Farms are a constant quantity and do not increase. It is only the wave of debt that increases over them."

"The only "protection" they ever were in need of is protection from dogs and tariff-mongers."

"Agriculture and commerce, as they once were, are things of the past. The one has been made unprofitable beyond description; the other is now impossible, except in a reduced way, under an alien flag."

"As we hold in derision now the discovery of the philosopher's stone and perpetual motion, so future generations will look upon this fetich of our time, and not without unspeakable amazement."

"They will see a generation here and now that is trying to lift itself over the fence by standing in a corn-basket and pulling upward on the handles."