When we who dwell within this province old,
Cloven in twain by the great river's tide,
Gird at inhospitable winter's cold,
And rue the downfall of fair summer's pride;
Or turn our eyes from gazing on the vales
Of lavish verdure and abundant fruit,
To those rough wastes where Nature ever fails,
And tillage spurns a profitless pursuit;
Let us recall that sentence from the hand
Of history's father, laying down his pen,--
Those words of Cyrus, which he made to stand
To all his work as moral and amen;
'Tis not the richest and most fertile land
That always bears the noblest breed of men.[1]
[1] "Although the work seems unfinished, it concludes with a sentence
which cannot have been placed casually at the end, viz., that, as the
great Cyrus was supposed to have said, 'It is not always the richest
and most fertile country which produces the most valiant
men.'"--_Commentary on the Work of Herodotus_.