Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/180

Lawful mendicancy Without reproach of loselry,
How mean soe’er that craft may be.
Then some through sickness or old age,
Or tender years, may not engage
In labour, they no touch of shame
Need feel if alms or doles they claim.12100
And then again some men we see,
Who in their time too jollily
Have lived, and now beside the way
Must seek poor pittance day by day;
Such men are suffered graciously
To beg lest they of hunger die.
Or if a man should go about
To search some craft or science out,
But all his industry and skill
The work eludes, do what he will,12110
And no man doth employment give
Whereby he earns the means to live,
Then by mendicity may he
Contend with dire necessity.
Or some poor peasant carle, who drives
The plough, and bowed by labour strives,
His brow bedewed with sweat, to gain
Sufficiency, but all in vain,
Should not be blamed although he went
Begging around to supplement12120
His scanty wage.
Or those who spend
Their lives and fortunes to defend
The faith by force of arms, in heat
Or cold, or in the justice seat,
And then in old age find them poor,
’Tis well they be allowed to cure