Give fools their gold, and knaves their power let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.

Whittier contrasts the noisy rewards of status—money for “fools” and power for “knaves”—with the quiet, constructive dignity of cultivation. “Fortune’s bubbles” suggests the fragility and moral emptiness of worldly success, which rises and collapses without lasting value. Against that volatility, the acts of sowing, training a flower, or planting a tree stand for patient labor, stewardship, and care for the future. The closing claim—“is more than all”—elevates generative work over acquisitive ambition, implying that nurturing life and improving the earth confer a deeper kind of worth than social rank or wealth.