{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/ars-agricolaris",
 "title": "Ars Agricolaris",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "An Ode for the “Farmer’s Dinner,” University Club, New York, January 23, 1913",
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 153,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
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   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
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   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 108,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 5
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "All hail, ye famous Farmers!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye vegetable-charmers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who know the art of making barren earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smile with prolific mirth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bring forth twins or triplets at a birth!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye scientific fertilizers of the soil,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And horny-handed sons of toil!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To-night from all your arduous cares released,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With manly brows no longer sweat-impearled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye hold your annual feast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And like the Concord farmers long ago,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye meet above the “Bridge” below,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And draw the cork heard round the world!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What memories are yours! What tales",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of triumph have your tongues rehearsed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Telling how ye have won your first",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Potatoes from the stubborn mead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Almost as many as ye sowed for seed!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how the luscious cabbages and kails",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have bloomed before you in their bed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At seven dollars a head!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how your onions took a prize",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For bringing tears into the eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a hard-hearted cook! And how ye slew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Dragon Cut-worm at a stroke!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how ye broke,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Routed, and put to flight the horrid crew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of vile potato-bugs and Hessian flies!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how ye did not quail",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Before th’ invading armies of San José Scale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But met them bravely with your little pail",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of poison, which ye put upon each tail",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "O’ the dreadful beasts and made their courage fail!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how ye did acquit yourselves like men",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "In fields of agricultural strife, and then,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Like generous warriors, sat you down at ease",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "And gently to your gardener said, “Let us have Pease!”",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But were there Pease? Ah, no, dear Farmers, no!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The course of Nature is not ordered so.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For when we want a vegetable most,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "She holds it back;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And when we boast",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To our week-endly friends",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what we’ll give them on our farm, alack,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Those things the old dam, Nature, never sends.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O Pease in bottles, Sparrow-grass in jars,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How often have ye saved from scars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of shame, and deep embarrassment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The disingenuous farmer-gent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To whom some wondering guest has cried,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "“How do you raise such Pease and Sparrow-grass?”",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereat the farmer-gent has not denied",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "The compliment, but smiling has replied,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "“To raise such things you must have lots of glass.”",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From wiles like these, true Farmers, hold aloof;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Accept no praise unless you have the proof.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If niggard Nature should withhold the green",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sugary Pea, welcome the humble Bean.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even the easy Radish, and the Beet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If grown by your own toil are extra sweet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let malefactors of great wealth and banker-felons",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rejoice in foreign artichokes, imported melons;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But you, my Farmers, at your frugal board",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spread forth the fare your Sabine Farms afford.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Say to Mæcenas, when he is your guest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“No peaches! try this turnip, ’tis my best.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus shall ye learn from labors in the field",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What honesty a farmer’s life may yield,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And like G. Washington in early youth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though cherries fail, produce a crop of truth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But think me not too strict, O followers of the plough;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some place for fiction in your lives I would allow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In January when the world is drear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bills come in, and no results appear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And snow-storms veil the skies,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And ice the streamlet clogs,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Then may you warm your heart with pleasant lies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And revel in the seedsmen’s catalogues!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What visions and what dreams are these",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of cauliflower obese⁠—",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Of giant celery, taller than a mast⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of strawberries",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Like red pincushions, round and vast⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of succulent and spicy gumbo⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of cantaloupes, as big as Jumbo⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of high-strung beans without the strings⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And of a host of other wild, romantic things!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Why, then, should Doctor Starr declare",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "That modern habits mental force impair?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why should H. Marquand complain",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "That jokes as good as his will never come again?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why should Bridges wear a gloomy mien",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "About the lack of fiction for his Magazine?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The seedsman’s catalogue is all we need",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "To stir our dull imaginations",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To new creations,",
    "indent": 5
   },
   {
    "text": "And lead us, by the hand",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Hope, into a fairy-land.",
    "indent": 4
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So dream, my friendly Farmers, as you will;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And let your fancy all your garners fill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With wondrous crops; but always recollect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Nature gives us less than we expect.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scorn not the city where you earn the wealth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, spent upon your farms, renews your health;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And tell your wife, whene’er the bills have shocked her,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“A country-place is cheaper than a doctor.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May roses bloom for you, and may you find",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your richest harvest in a tranquil mind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}