MAIZE; AND TOBACCO

Seventh-Day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 31, 1884

THE Indian corn looked over the fence, And what do you think he spied? A field of tobacco, just ready to bloom, And stretching in lordly pride.

To his broad-leaved neighbor at once he called, In accents loud and clear, “I thought you belonged to a sunnier clime; Pray what are you doing here?”

So then, with haughty air, replied The plant of power and pelf, “You are pleased to ask of my business, sir, What do you do yourself?”

“I feed the muscle, and blood, and bone, To make our farmers strong, And furnish blood for the little ones, That round their tables throng.”

“I move in a somewhat loftier sphere,” The foreign guest rejoined, “As the chosen friend and companion dear Of men of wealth and mind.

“I’m the chief delight of the gay young spark; O’er the wise my sway I hold; I lurk in the book-worm student’s cell,— In the dowager’s box of gold.

“Thousands of hands at my bidding work; Millions of coin I raise—” He ceased to speak, and in angry mood Responded the tasseled Maize:

“You’re in secret league with dyspeptic ills— A merciless traitor hand— With clouds of smoke you pollute the air, With floods of slime the land.

“You tax the needy laborer sore; You quicken the drunkard’s thirst; You exhaust the soil—and I wish you’d go To the place whence you came at first.”

—Christian Secretary.