I awaken from brief and fitful rest
Which but my strife has convalesced
And naught of pride within my chest,
When life becomes of one unblessed.

It’s then I hear a doleful wail,
The type to make a rose go pale,
Which one might note as some grim gale
Within the shadows of dark dale.

Out from my glassless window hole,
Which nightly lends the rats their toll,
And flies to feed on me ’til full,
My oxen are invisible.

In haste replace my only shirt,
Threadbare and made mostly of dirt,
And bound outside to find so pert
Mine oxen wailing sorely hurt.

Tracking their ghastly deep lament,
I venture past the field and flint,
To where my meager land is spent,
Unto a swamp my oxen went.

One already had been drowned,
The other just his nostrils crowned,
Making the horridest of sound,
As I fall to marshy ground.

I till and furrow on my own,
Under violent sun there shown,
Yoked as beast as ever known,
All so flimsy wheat is grown.

All so the largest part of yield,
Once it leaves my stony field,
Shan’t my wife or children wield
But be sought by soldier’s shield.

And here he comes with hand on sword,
Amidst servants tending their lord,
To pilfer grain I can’t afford
And all the milk that can be poured.

He nears me from the arid lane,
Eyes me with but sheer disdain,
Golden cross dangling from chain,
And then demands, “give grain!”

“My lord, this month was full of woe:
No rain would let the harvest grow;
Mine oxen drowned in mire slow,
And from mine cow no milk would flow.”

The soldier struck me with his hand,
And before I could but stand
Pressed my face into the land,
Whilst his servants brought the brand.

Upon my back they blistered red
A mark of sheaf, and then they said,
“If you get three, it is your head,”
Then took our last crumb of bread.

My wife and kids saw the ordeal,
Rushed to my side and helped me heal;
“Papa, please, come have a meal –
Here are some eggs we had to steal.”