  The wind was high, the window shook, The miser woke with haggard look; He stalked along the silent room, He shivered at the gleam and gloom, Each lock and every corner eyed, And then he stood his chest beside; He opened it, and stood in rapture In sight of gold he held in capture; And then, with sudden qualm possessed, He wrung his hands and beat his breast: "O, had the earth concealed this gold, I had perhaps in peace grown old! But there is neither gold nor price To recompense the pang of vice. Bane of all good—delusive cheat, To lure a soul on to defeat And banish honour from the mind: Gold raised the sword midst kith and kind, Gold fosters each, pernicious art In which the devils bear a part,— Gold, bane accursed!" In angry mood Plutus, his god, before him stood. The trembling miser slammed the chest. "What rant and cant have you expressed, Yon sordid wretch! It is the mind, And not the gold, corrupts mankind. Shall my best medium be accused Because its virtues are abused? Virtue and gold alike betrayed, When knaves demand a cloak to trade; So likewise power in their possession Grows into tyrannous oppression. And in like manner gold may be Abused to vice and villany. But when it flows in virtue's streams It blesses like the sun's blest beams— Wiping the tears from widowed eyes And soothing bereft orphans' cries. Speak not of misers who have sold Their soul's integrity for gold— Than bravoes and than cut-throats worse, Who in their calling steal a purse." |
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