Brotherhood (Lovecraft)

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

Upon his lips a mumbled ballad stirredThe 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 fieldWhere 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 raceHad proved the boor a finer man than I!