Classic Poem

Well here, another year, at least,
We go along with blinking sight,
By smoky dust arising white
Up off our road, to Lincham feast.
With trudging steps of tramping feet,
We souls on foot, with foot-folk meet:
For we that cannot hope to ride
For ease or pride, have fellowship.

And so, good father tried to show
To folk, with hands on right or left
Down-pull'd by some great bundle's heft,
And trudging weary, to or fro,
That rich men are but one to ten
When reckon'd off with working men,
And so have less, the while the poor
Have ten times more of fellowship.

He thought, good man, whatever part
We have to play, we all shall find
That fellowship of kind with kind
Must keep us better up in heart;
And why should working folk be shy
Of work, with mostly work-folk by,
While kings must live in lonesome states,
With none for mates in fellowship?

Tall chimneys up with high-flown larks,
And houses, roods in length, with sights
Of windows, glaring off in lights
That shoot up slopes of wood-bound parks,
Are far and wide, and not so thick
As poor men's little homes of brick,
By ones or twos, or else in row
So small and low, in fellowship.

But we, wherever we may come,
Have fellowship in hands and loads,
And fellowship of feet on roads;
And lowliness of house and home;
And fellowship in homely fare,
And homely garb for daily wear;
And so may Heaven bless the more
The working poor in fellowship.