Brotherhood (Lovecraft)
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!
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1937, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 86 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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