Six men were trapped by happenstance
in black and bitter cold,
each one possessed a stick of wood,
or so the story's told.
The dying fire needed logs,
the first man held his back
because, of the faces round the fire,
he noticed one was black.
The next man,looking opposite, saw one
not of his church and couldn't bring himself
to give the fire his stick of birch.
The third man sat in tattered clothes,
he gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
to warm the idle rich?
The rich man sat and thought awhile
of the wealth he had in store,
and how to keep what he had earned
from those lazy, shiftless poor.
The black mans face bespoke revenge
as the fire passed from sight,
for all he could see in his stick of wood
was a chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group
did nought except for gain
giving only to those who have
was the way he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death's still hands
was proof of human sin,
they didn't die from the cold without,
they died from the cold within.