A destitute and friendless farmer, turned from the tradesman’s entrance, tries his luck at the front door.
This poem was composed by the Revd Mr Thomas Moss, minister of Brierley Hill and Trentham in Staffordshire, and included in a collection of verses that he published anonymously in 1769. Admired for its pathos, the poem became a standard for children to memorise, in the hope of sowing the seeds of charitable feelings at an early age; consequently, it was also much parodied.