Unless a government interferes

I have not ever thought of Robert Frost as a particularly political poet and I don't suppose he necessarily was. He famously wrote and read a poem at John F. Kennedy's inauguration. But reading Something of Hope, one of his poems in the collection Versed in Country Things, edited by Edward Connery Latham, he expresses a sentiment oddly contemporary. (The poem also appears in Robert Frost Collected Poems, Prose and Plays) The poem follows. Saving those that might need a Latin refresher (as I did), spes alit agricolam is Latin for "hope sustains the farmer".

Something for Hope
by Robert Frost

At the present rate it must come to pass,
And that right soon, that the meadowsweet
And steeple bush, not good to eat,
Will have crowded out the edible grass.

Then all there is to do is wait
For maple, birch, and spruce to push
Through the meadowsweet and steeple bush
And crowd them out at a similar rate.

No plow among these rocks would pay.
So busy yourself with other things
While the trees put on their wooden rings
And with long-sleeved branches hold their sway.

Then cut down the trees when lumber grown,
And there's your pristine earth all freed
From lovely blooming but wasteful weed
And ready again for the grass to own.

A cycle we'll say of a hundred years.
Thus foresight does it and laissez-faire,
A virtue in which we all may share
Unless a government interferes.

Patience and looking away ahead,
And leaving some things to take their course.
Hope may not nourish a cow or horse,
But spes alit agricolam 'tis said.