The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 100

III.

O Gold! Why call we misers miserable?[614]

Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall; Theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable Which holds fast other pleasures great and small.

Ye who but see the saving man at table, And scorn his temperate board, as none at all, And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing, Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring.

IV.

Love or l.u.s.t makes Man sick, and wine much sicker; Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss; But making money, slowly first, then quicker, And adding still a little through each cross (Which _will_ come over things), beats Love or liquor, The gamester's counter, or the statesman's _dross_.

O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper, Which makes bank credit like a bank of _vapour_.

V.

Who hold the balance of the World? Who reign O'er congress, whether royalist or liberal?

Who rouse the s.h.i.+rtless patriots of Spain?[615]

(That make old Europe's journals "squeak and gibber"[616] all) Who keep the World, both old and new, in pain Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?

The shade of Buonaparte's n.o.ble daring?-- Jew Rothschild,[617] and his fellow-Christian, Baring.

VI.

Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte,[618]

Are the true Lords of Europe. Every loan Is not a merely speculative hit, But seats a Nation or upsets a Throne.

Republics also get involved a bit; Columbia's stock hath holders not unknown On 'Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru, Must get itself discounted by a Jew.

VII.

Why call the miser miserable? as I said before: the frugal life is his, Which in a saint or cynic ever was The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss Canonization for the self-same cause, And wherefore blame gaunt Wealth's austerities?

Because, you 'll say, nought calls for such a trial;-- Then there's more merit in his self-denial.

VIII.

He is your only poet;--Pa.s.sion, pure And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays, _Possessed_, the ore, of which _mere hopes_ allure Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure: On him the Diamond pours its brilliant blaze, While the mild Emerald's beam shades down the dies Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes.

IX.

The lands on either side are his; the s.h.i.+p From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads For him the fragrant produce of each trip; Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads, And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip; His very cellars might be Kings' abodes; While he, despising every sensual call, Commands--the intellectual Lord of _all_.

X.

Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind, To build a college, or to found a race, A hospital, a church,--and leave behind Some dome surmounted by his meagre face: Perhaps he fain would liberate Mankind Even with the very ore which makes them base; Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation, Or revel in the joys of calculation.

XI.

But whether all, or each, or none of these May be the h.o.a.rder's principle of action, The fool will call such mania a disease:-- What is his _own?_ Go--look at each transaction, Wars, revels, loves--do these bring men more ease Than the mere plodding through each "vulgar fraction?"

Or do they benefit Mankind? Lean Miser!

Let spendthrifts' heirs inquire of yours--who's wiser?

XII.

How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins (Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests Weigh not the thin ore where their visage s.h.i.+nes,[lg]

But) of fine unclipped gold, where dully rests Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines, Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp!-- Yes! ready money _is_ Aladdin's lamp.[619]

XIII.

"Love rules the Camp, the Court, the Grove,--for Love Is Heaven, and Heaven is Love:"[620]--so sings the bard; Which it were rather difficult to prove (A thing with poetry in general hard).

Perhaps there may be something in "the Grove,"

At least it rhymes to "Love:" but I'm prepared To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental) If "Courts" and "Camps" be quite so sentimental.

XIV.

But if Love don't, _Cash_ does, and Cash alone: Cash rules the Grove, and fells it too besides; Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none; Without cash, Malthus tells you--"take no brides."[621]

So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways the tides: And as for "Heaven being Love," why not say honey Is wax? Heaven is not Love, 't is Matrimony.

XV.

Is not all Love prohibited whatever, Excepting Marriage? which is Love, no doubt, After a sort; but somehow people never With the same thought the two words have helped out.

Love may exist _with_ Marriage, and _should_ ever, And Marriage also may exist without; But Love _sans_ banns is both a sin and shame, And ought to go by quite another name.

XVI.

Now if the "Court," and "Camp," and "Grove," be not Recruited all with constant married men, Who never coveted their neighbour's lot, I say _that_ line's a lapsus of the pen;-- Strange too in my _buon camerado_ Scott, So celebrated for his morals, when My Jeffrey held him up as an example[622]

To me;--of whom these morals are a sample.[lh]

XVII.

Well, if I don't succeed, I _have_ succeeded, And that's enough; succeeded in my youth, The only time when much success is needed: And my success produced what I, in sooth, Cared most about; it need not now be pleaded-- Whate'er it was, 'twas mine; I've paid, in truth, Of late, the penalty of such success, But have not learned to wish it any less.

XVIII.

That suit in Chancery,[623]--which some persons plead In an appeal to the unborn, whom they, In the faith of their procreative creed, Baptize Posterity, or future clay,-- To me seems but a dubious kind of reed To lean on for support in any way; Since odds are that Posterity will know No more of them, than they of her, I trow.

XIX.[li]

Why, I'm Posterity--and so are you; And whom do we remember? Not a hundred.

Were every memory written down all true, The tenth or twentieth name would be but blundered; Even Plutarch's Lives have but picked out a few, And 'gainst those few your annalists have thundered; And Mitford[624] in the nineteenth century Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.

XX.

Good people all, of every degree, Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers, In this twelfth Canto 't is my wish to be As serious as if I had for inditers Malthus and Wilberforce:--the last set free The Negroes, and is worth a million fighters; While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites, And Malthus[625] does the thing 'gainst which he writes.

XXI.

I'm serious--so are all men upon paper; And why should I not form my speculation, And hold up to the Sun my little taper?[626]

Mankind just now seem wrapped in meditation On const.i.tutions and steam-boats of vapour; While sages write against all procreation, Unless a man can calculate his means Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans.

XXII.

That's n.o.ble! That's romantic! For my part, I think that "Philo-genitiveness" is-- (Now here's a word quite after my own heart, Though there's a shorter a good deal than this, If that politeness set it not apart; But I'm resolved to say nought that's amiss)-- I say, methinks that "Philo-genitiveness"[627]

Might meet from men a little more forgiveness.