The lands on either side are his; the ship 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. 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. But whether all, or each, or none of these May be the hoarder’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 enquire of yours—who ’s wiser? 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 shines, But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines, Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp:— Yes! ready money is Aladdin’s lamp. ‘Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,’—‘for love Is heaven, and heaven is love:’—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. 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.’ 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, ’tis Matrimony. 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 help’d out: Love may exist with marriage, and should ever, And marriage also may exist without; But love sans bans is both a sin and shame, And ought to go by quite another name. 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 To me;—of whom these morals are a sample.