Brotherhood

In prideful scorn I watched the farmer stride With step uncouth o’er road and mossy lane; How could I help but distantly deride The churlish, calloused, coarse-clad country swain?

Upon his lips a mumbled ballad stirred The evening air with dull cacophony; In cold contempt, I shuddered as I heard, And held myself no kin to such as he.

But as he leaped the stile and gained the field Where star-faced blossoms twinkled through the hay, His lumb’ring footfalls oftentimes would yield, To spare the flowers that bloomed along the way.

And while I gazed, my spirit swelled apace; With the crude swain I owned the human tie; The tenderest impulse of a noble race Had proved the boor a finer man than I!