| The yoke of pride, so many times
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| Has fallen on the best of us
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| The yoke of pride, so many times
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| Has burdened us who dwell in charity
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| Why, you ask, not break the chains?
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| T’is hard enough contending with
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| The downward eyes of passer-bys
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| No hearth, no home, no love, no dignity
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| Lo, yet one more decry
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| From an infamous throne such as mine
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| Vile and stable
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| In a wondrous and slow decline
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| The rain still must fall
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| On a wanderer of such likeness.
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| Fortune is a beggars bane
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| Yet the stain blights us all
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| More so who thus deny it.
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| Fortune is a beggars bane
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| Now I’m a rogue in your eyes
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| But I once was a yeoman who shined
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| With a place at the table
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| With laymen and lords alike
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| Now I find myself in the mire
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| Of a world still unfolding itself
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| Vile and stable
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| In a wondrous and slow decline |