free-verse42 lines
Miser And Plutus
by John GayThe 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."