In those days, the great men of the land were rich and they dressed gaily in silk and fur, gorgeous were their jewels, and their scabbards were decked with beauteous workmanship. From their bridles jangled the merry bells, as they followed their hounds to the hunt. The court too was magnificent. The King gave bounteous feasts and there were many dishes set before the guests. "There came in at the first course, before the King's self, Boars' heads on broad dishes of burnished silver, Flesh of fat harts with noble furmenty, And peacocks and plovers on platters of gold, Herons and swans in chargers of silver, And tarts of Turkey full pleasant to taste. Next hams of wild-boar with brawn beglazed, Barnacle-geese and bitterns in embossed dishes, Venison in pasties, so comely to view, Jellies that glittered and gladdened the eye. Then cranes and curlews craftily roasted, Conies in clear sauce coloured so bright, Pheasants in their feathers on the flashing silver, With gay galantines and dainties galore. There were claret and Crete wine in clear silver fountains Rhenish wine and Rochelle and wine from Mount Rose All in flagons of fine gold; and on the fair cupboard Stood store of gilt goblets glorious of hue, Sixty of one set, with jewels on their sides. When the banquet was over the guests washed their hands in rosewater and partook of wine and spices in another chamber. But the poor were much oppressed. Their fare was very simple, a loaf of beans and bran, an oaten cake with cheese or curds and cream, and sometimes perhaps parsley and leeks or cherries and apples in their season. Of the poor ploughman, the poet sang, His coat of the cloth that is named carry-marry, His hood full of holes, with the hair sticking through them; His clumsy knobbed shoes cobbled over so thickly, Though his toes started out as he trod on the ground, His hose hanging over each side of his hoggers, All plashed in the puddles as he followed the plough; Two miserable mittens made out of old rags, The fingers worn out and the filth clotted on them, He, wading in mud, almost up to his ankles, And before him four oxen, so weary and feeble, One could reckon their ribs, so rueful were they. His wife walked beside him, with a long ox goad, In a clouted coat cut short to the knee, Wrapped in a winnowing sheet to keep out the weather, Her bare feet on the bleak ice bled as she went. At one end of the acre, in a crumb-bowl so small, A little babe lay, lapped up in rags, And twins two years old tumbled beside it, All singing one song that was sorrowful hearing, For they all cried one cry, a sad note of care.