Robert Bloomfield was an English labouring class poet whose work is appreciated in the context of other self-educated writers such as Stephen Duck, Mary Collier and John Clare.
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.
Remember the Viper:--'twas close at your feet,
How you started and threw yourself into my arms;
Not a strawberry there was so ripe nor so sweet
As the lips which I kiss'd to subdue your alarms.
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.