Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2204

A poem by a favorite poet, Sam Walter Foss, entitled “Ownership,” which Heath typed out and liked to always carry with him.

 

OWNERSHIP

 

There is a fiddle I call mine

   Made of most ancient wood

That in the babyhood of time

   In primal forest stood.

The tree in which my fiddle grew

   Stood in a forest glen,

And reached its long arms towards the blue

   Through lives of many men.

But when its music I invoke

   And touch its tender strings

Responsive to my clumsy stroke

   Harsh is the song it sings.

 

There came a beggar to my door

   In raggedness and woe.

He took my fiddle in his hand

   And drew its ancient bow.

It sang the wind-song of the pine —

   A voice that weeps and grieves,

Then murmured like the rustling lisp

   Of multitudinous leaves.

And then there came the giant crash

   Of wild wind-driven rain, —

The old tune of the ancient wood

   Played by the hurricane.

 

And then the sunlight smote the leaves,

   And forth there rushed a throng

Of glad bird-voices on the air

   In million-throated song.

My fiddle in that beggar’s hand

   Sang all the songs it knew

And learned long ago within

   The wood in which it grew.

And as I heard those wondrous tunes,

   I could not help but sigh,

“The beggar owns that fiddle of mine,

   He owns it and not I.”

 

II

 

Old John McNaughten owns a farm

   Up in the Sandham Hills,

Which he, though grumblingly and glum,

   Industriously tills.

He goes to his reluctant toil

   And labors day by day,

Proclaiming to all men he meets

   That farming doesn’t pay.

But I love John McNaughten’s farm,

   I love its hills and dales,

Its orchards vestured in white bloom,

   Its clover-scented vales.

 

I love the fragrance of its soil,

   Whence incense rises high,

Like whiffs from off an altar stone,

   In worship to the sky.

The brook that through his meadow glides

   Sings to me as it flows,

Songs of the hills from whence it came,

   The sea to which it goes.

I lie upon its leafy banks

   In pensive languor curled,

Bosomed in beauty such as graced

   The morning of the world.

 

I walk upon McNaughten’s farm,

   And there this truth decry:

There is no private ownership

   Of earth or air or sky,

And all that’s best beneath the stars

   Is mine to have and hold;

The worth that lies beyond all worth

   Cannot be bought or sold.

And, though McNaughten holds his farm

   Heir of an ancient line,

For all his seal-stamped title deed,

   I know his farm is mine.