| C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. | | | | Bloomfield |
| | | | Build me a shrine, and I could kneel |
| To rural Gods, or prostrate fall; |
| Did I not see, did I not feel, |
| That one Great Spirit governs all. |
| O heaven, permit that I may lie |
| Where o’er my corse green branches wave; |
| And those who from life’s tumults fly |
| With kindred feelings press my grave. |
| 1 |
| | But how unlike to April’s closing days! |
| High climbs the sun, and darts his powerful rays; |
| Whitens the fresh drawn mould and pierces through |
| The cumbrous clods that tumble round the plough. |
| 2 |
| | Dear Ellen, your tales are all plenteously stored, |
| With the joy of some bride and the wealth of her lord, |
| Of her chariots and dresses, |
| And worldly caresses, |
| And servants that fly when she’s waited upon: |
| But what can she boast if she weds unbeloved? |
| Can she e’er feel the joy that one morning I proved, |
| When I put on my new gown and waited for John? |
| 3 |
| | Fled now the sullen murmurs of the North, |
| The splendid raiment of the Spring peeps forth. |
| 4 |
| | Still Twilight, welcome! Rest, how sweet art thou! |
| Now eve o’erhangs the western cloud’s thick brow; |
| The far-stretch’d curtain of retiring light, |
| With fiery treasures fraught; that on the sight |
| Flash from its bulging sides, where darkness lowers, |
| In Fancy’s eye, a chain of mould’ring tow’rs; |
| Or craggy coasts just rising into view, |
| Midst jav’lins dire and darts of streaming blue. |
| 5 |
| | Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look, |
| The fields his study, nature was his book. |
| 6 |
| | The kindly intercourse will ever prove |
| A bond of amity and social love. |
| 7 |
| | The lessons of prudence have charms, |
| And slighted, may lead to distress; |
| But the man whom benevolence warms |
| Is an angel who lives but to bless. |
| 8 |
| | Unsparing as the scourge of war, |
| Blasts follow blasts, and groves dismantled roar. |
| 9 |
| | When now, unsparing as the scourge of war, |
| Blasts follow blasts and groves dismantled roar; |
| Around their home the storm-pinched cattle lows, |
| No nourishment in frozen pasture grows; |
| Yet frozen pastures every morn resound |
| With fair abundance thund’ring to the ground. |
| 10 |
| Proud-crested fiend, the world’s worst foe, ambition. | 11 |
| Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look; the field his study, Nature was his book. | 12 | | |
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