[Verse 1] Dawn comes grey on the kitchen stone, Butler, brewer, porter, standing alone, The horsekeeper leans on the stable door, Nobody's laughing like the days before. Their master's walked to Westminster Hall, July the first, and the oak might fall, They don't see the courtroom, don't hear the plea, Just four plain folk, waiting quietly. [Chorus] We are the copartners — that's the word for the share, Sharing one fortune, one roof, one care, When the master falters, the whole house shakes, A servant's sorrow is the bargain he makes. Copartners in kindness, copartners in dread, Tied by the hand that always fed and bred. [Verse 2] The butler wipes his eye on his sleeve and swears, "I think there lives not a more harmless gentleman in the universal world" — no airs, Just wine poured free and a joke well spun, The gentlest, merriest master under the sun. The brewer nods, the porter sighs, The horsekeeper counts the empty stalls with his eyes. [Chorus] We are the copartners — that's the word for the share, Sharing one fortune, one roof, one care, When the master falters, the whole house shakes, A servant's sorrow is the bargain he makes. Copartners in kindness, copartners in dread, Tied by the hand that always fed and bred. [Verse 3] Footsteps — Gough the secretary, pale and spent, Catesby the steward, grim with the news he's sent. "Condemned" — that means the judges have spoken the word, Death is decided, sentence is heard. Catesby tells it plain, no comfort to lend: "Law hath made him a dead man to the world, and given the axe his head" — a bitter end. [Verse 4] Lady More, searching the study late at night, Found a paper folded, tucked out of sight — Twenty nobles (that's gold coin, plain and bright) For every servant, worst treated as right. Catesby counts it out, coin by coin, A parting gift from a master none could outshine, Generous even falling, open-handed still, Paying the debt of a kind man's will. [Bridge] "Thus the fair spreading oak falls not alone" — Branches and nests come down with the throne, Sparrows and servants, bereft and small, (Bereft — left stripped, when the great ones fall) One trunk topples, the whole wood feels the blow, That's the lesson this quiet scene lets us know. [Outro] No trial is shown, no judges, no plea, Just coins on a table and grief we can see — History says Westminster Hall, the first of July, But here it's four servants, wondering why. Copartners in fortune, copartners still, Carrying forward a generous man's will.
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