Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that ofttimes hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

John Keats (1795-1821): Ode to a Nightingale.

She stood breast-high amid the corn

Clasp'd by the golden light of morn,

Like the sweetheart of the sun,

Who many a glowing kiss had won.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Ruth.

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,

The line too labours, and the words move slow:

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 166.

As soon

Seek roses in December, ice in June;

Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;

Believe a woman or an epitaph,

Or any other thing that's false, before

You trust in critics.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 75.

Did thrust as now in others' corn his sickle.

Du Bartas (1544-1590): Second Week, Second Day, Part ii.

Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,

Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Brothers.