The younger son took all he had,
And soon the whole was spent;
A famine rising in the land,
He soon began to want.

He therefore went and hired himself
Unto a citizen;
And out into the field he went
To feed his master's swine.

And he was hungry; hunger came
So pressing that he fain
Would have partaken of the husks
With which he fed the swine.

And there he came unto himself,
And thought upon his home,
"I plenty had when I was there,
To what am I now come?

"My father's hired servants have
Great plenty and to spare,
While I am perishing for food,
And with the swine do share.

"I well remember father's house,
And brother too so kind;
Why did I leave them, here to die,
This poverty to find?