From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 157-158.
A RURAL BOOK
The Bible is a rural book.
From pastured hills the prophets look;
The inspiration of their word,
Stern voices in the storm winds heard.
When Heaven’s light on Jacob shone
His head was pillowed on a stone.
The city no such vision yields;
His ladder rested in the fields.
Not yet a king, by wood and rock,
Saul sought his father’s straying stock.
Young David watched the grazing sheep,
The flock from wolves and bears to keep.
With pebbles from a country brook,
The great Philistine’s life he took.
All scripture heroes had their birth,
Where naked feet touch naked earth.
And one there was, exceeding them,
Who walked Main Street in Bethlehem
And kept with angel voices tryst;
A small-town carpenter was Christ.
He wrought no stately mansion’s ribs,
But homely things like babies’ cribs.
We celebrate his natal day;
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And even cities own his sway,
But still, as then, the fields rejoice
And praise him with a clearer voice.
No little village gave him death,
No Bethany nor Nazareth.
His words were words of life to them;
Men slew him in Jerusalem.