Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Poems and Songs. II. They All Belong to Me

Eliza Cook (1818–1889)

THERE are riches without measure

Scattered thickly o’er the land;

There are heaps and heaps of treasure,

Bright, beautiful, and grand;

There are forests, there are mountains,

There are meadows, there are rills,

Forming everlasting fountains

In the bosoms of the hills;

There are birds and there are flowers

The fairest things that be—

And these great and joyful dowers,

Oh! “they all belong to me.”

There are golden acres bending

In the light of harvest rays,

There are garland branches blending

With the breath of June’s sweet days

There are pasture grasses blowing

In the dewy, moorland shade,

There are herds of cattle lowing

In the midst of bloom and blade;

There are noble elms that quiver,

As the gale comes full and free,

There are alders by the river,

And “they all belong to me.”

I care not who may reckon

The wheat piled up in sacks,

Nor who has power to beckon

The woodman with his axe;

I care not who hold leases

Of the upland or the dell,

Nor who may count the fleeces

When the flocks are fit to sell.

While there’s beauty none can barter

By the greensward and the tree:

Claim who will, by seal and charter,

Yet “they all belong to me.”

There’s the thick and dingled cover

Where the hare and pheasant play,

There are sheets of rosy clover,

There are hedges crowned with May;

There are vines all dark and gushing.

There are orchards ripe and red,

There are herds of wild deer crushing

The heath-bells as they tread.

And ye, who count in money

The value these may be,

Your hives but hold my honey,

For “they all belong to me.”

Ye cannot shut the tree in,

Ye cannot hide the hills,

Ye cannot wall the sea in,

Ye cannot choke the rills;

The corn will only nestle

In the broad arms of the sky,

The clover crop must wrestle

With the common wind, or die.

And while these stores of treasure

Are spread where I may see,

By God’s high, bounteous pleasure,

“They all belong to me.”

What care I for the profit

The stricken stem may yield?

I have the shadow of it

While upright in the field.

What reck I of the riches

The mill-stream gathers fast,

While I bask in shady niches,

And see the brook go past?

What reck I who has title

To the widest lands that be?

They are mine, without requital,

God gave them all to me.

Oh! privilege and blessing,

To find I ever own,

What great ones, in possessing

Imagine theirs alone!

Oh! glory to the Maker,

Who gave such boon to hold,

Who made me free partaker

Where others buy with gold!

For while the woods and mountains

Stand up where I can see,

While God unlocks the fountains,

“They all belong to me!”