Robert Trowbridge wrote for _Scribner’s Magazine_ the following
verse:
My neighbor hath a little field,
Small store of wine its presses yield,
And truly but a slender hoard
Its harvest brings for barn or board.
Yet tho a hundred fields are mine,
Fertile with olive, corn, and vine;
Tho autumn piles my garners high,
Still for that little field I sigh,
For, ah! methinks no other where
Is any field so good and fair.
Small tho it be, ’tis better far
Than all my fruitful vineyards are,
Amid whose plenty sad I pine--
“Ah, would that little field were mine!”
Large knowledge void of peace and rest,
And wealth with pining care possest--
These by my fertile lands are meant.
That little field is called Content.
(564)