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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE OLD LABOURER, by ARTHUR WILLIAM SYMONS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: His fourscore years have bent a back of oak
Last Line: Just seventeen pence to starve on, seven days long.
Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Old Age; Work; Workers
First Line: His fourscore years have bent a back of oak
Last Line: Just seventeen pence to starve on, seven days long.
Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Old Age; Work; Workers
His fourscore years have bent a back of oak,
His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits;
His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits
Bending above the hearthstone's feeble smoke.
Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land;
He wrung his bread out of the stubborn soil;
He saw his masters flourish through his toil;
He held their substance in his horny hand.
Now he is old: he asks for daily bread:
He who has sowed the bread he may not taste
Begs for the crumbs: he would do no man wrong.
The Parish Guardians, when his case is read,
Will grant him, yet with no unseemly haste,
Just seventeen pence to starve on, seven days long.
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NERVES by ARTHUR WILLIAM SYMONS