God's Grace

"The poor," you say, "are so uncouth".
    Well, many of them are.
They did not, like you, live their youth
    Beneath a kindly star.
They were not mot gently born and bred,
    From families refined. . . .
Yet  e'en as yours  their blood is red,
    Their hearts are kind.

You say that they are course and crude;
    They eat peas with a knife,
Inhale   their soup, their ways are rude,
    You shudder from their life.
Yet but for accident of birth
    You might have been as they,
Your porcelain of common earth,
    Your china - clay.

Is it not that by God's good grace
    You were not hovel born?
You might have grovelled in the place
    Of grimy men you scorn;
You might  have worn a singlet torn
    And scratched a lousy itch,
And swung a pick   with hands of horn
    Deep in a ditch.

You might have . . . Well, I saw today
    My drain-digger do that;
And to him, bent and badger-grey,
    I doffed my Homburg hat;
For though I have no pride of race
    Like hell it haunted me
To think that - but for heaven's grace
    I might be he.