EDITORIAL: A Christmas song for three guilds

THE CARPENTERS

St. Joseph to the Carpenters said on a Christmas Day:

“The master shall have patience and the prentice shall obey;

And your word unto your women shall be nowise hard or wild:

For the sake of me, your master, who have worshipped Wife and Child.

But softly you shall frame the fence, and softly carve the door,

And softly plane the table — as to spread it for the poor,

And all your thoughts be soft and white as the wood of the white tree.

But if they tear the Charter, Jet the tocsin speak for me!

Let the wooden sign above your shop be prouder to be scarred

Than the lion-shield of Lancelot that hung at Joyous Garde.”

THE SHOEMAKERS

St. Crispin to the shoemakers said on a Christmastide:

“Who fashions at another’s feet will get no good of pride.

They were bleeding on the Mountain, the feet that brought good news,

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