Would'st thou break the chain, that binds thee closer,
To Wealth's contemptible idolatry,
Than is the native, Pagan Indian bound
To the accursed Car of Juggernaut?
Discard, forthwith, that slander of the truth,
Which says, that wealth produces happiness;
A plant congenial, but to virtue's soil,
And reared by vigilant cultivation;
Nor still perpetuate thy name and woes,
By wearing Mammon's tinsel livery,
Which cheats thee, of thy cash and credit, too,
And fits thee, for a beggar or a thief!
Descend not to the basest mimicry,
Of Folly's first and worst delinquency,
A gaudy, superficial frippery;
But, frankly, own thy name and character,
And miss the stigma of duplicity,
Which seems, too deeply, graven on the heart
Of man, to be, by reason, burnished out,
Or extinguished by regeneration!
We've said, thou should'st invoke the Pythoness Of Wisdom's Temple, (who is Reason's self, Improved by patient, useful discipline,
Amongst earth's real apprehensibles)
To teach thee, how thou shalt release thyself,
At once, from a disgraceful servitude;
And furthermore, how wrongly, thou hast judged
Of Wealth's exclusive aptitude for bliss!
The rule, thou hast adopted for thy guide,
In adding up and balancing accounts,
Between thyself and Mammon's favorite,
Was not proposed by Solomon nor Paul;
But smacks of Parsimony's rule of three,
Which proves, as clearly as the a, b, c,
That good for you is better, still, for me!
And thus, thou hast augmented, wrongfully,
Wealth's real happiness above thine own.
Thy mouth is, doubtless, full of verbal proofs,
In form of oathful asservation,
That, of the warp and woof which wealth enjoys,
Thou would'st weave an interminable web
Of most exquisite, earthly happiness
A Cashmere suit, for every brat of thine!
And so, fell Parsimony promises
To its inimitable self, at least;
And hence it starves, to hoard the magic stuff,
In which, like almost all mankind, it thinks
The very soul of happiness resides!
And, as a most judicious episode,
It steals thy very rags, to clothe itself!
Success, on such a plan, can scarcely fail,
Oftener than would a vigorous attempt,
To lift one's self, by tugging, lustily,
At boot-straps, or waistband of one's breeches!
Nor is Ostentation more successful
Than Parsimony, in the bliss it seeks!
And though, apparently, less groveling-
Less soiled by loam, than by licentiousness,
There's not a vice so reprehensible,
With the exception of Intemperance,
Whose omnipotence is proverbial,
In transmuting manhood to beastliness,
As we think this same ostentation is!
Nor has it 'mongst the foes of righteousness,
Or of mutual, social happiness,
A single, other, fair competitor!
Each follows out the promptings of its own
Indomitable, base propensity,
And would monopolize the world itself,
Were not its pow'r unequal to its ends!
The one, in order to maintain a state
Of base, contemptible magnificence,
For the exquisite glorification,
Of being gaped at by the idiot!
The other, in its fearful providence,.
Would miss the thousand curses, heaped on thee,
And, therefore, lives the very mimic
Of the character, it so much detests!
So near together are the two extremes!
What would'st thou profit, therefore, by exchange
Of state and character, with those we've named?-
E'en Beggary, itself, would be insane,
To swop its very worst estate with either!
Each is engaged in vigilant pursuit
Of exclusive, individual bliss,
Which both, remotely miss, and equally:
For Happiness is perched on Reason's shield,
Whose standard is erected just midway,
Between these antipodes of wretchedness,
The furbished, and the furfuraceous:
And, surely, thou dost offer evidence,
Amidst thy lengthened catalogue of faults,
As indubitable as truth itself,
That thou art much less mischievous than they :
And yet, thy virtue, like the most of ours,
Is both negative and apocryphal :
For, that thy guilt is less than theirs is not
From want of inclination, but of power;
Therefore, until thy principles are changed,
Thy miseries, with thy means, would multiply:-
Success would stultify thine intellect,
And indolence destroy thine enterprise;-
So that thou might, successfully, contest,
With human things, the prize of infamy!
Awake! and take a peep at destiny,
As fate hath settled it with human kind,
And as God, in Scripture, hath revealed it!
There, thou may'st measure with exactitude,
The length and breadth of both thy weal and wo;
Nor Heaven, nor Fate, hath meditated ill
To thee; but, to thy moral turpitude!
Thy name, in Christendom, was coupled onee,
With saintly and prophetic piety;
And thought to be almost synonymous,
With unsophisticated holiness!—
And who, from choice, became thy devotee,
Was honored as a saint, and deified!
And so he might be now, with little risk”
Of multiplying acts of sacrilege;
For no one knows thee, and detests thee not,
Unless his fast-receding sinciput
Proclaims his irresponsibility:
Nor was it, anciently, a small mistake,
That thine was thought the name of righteousness!
For thou hast not, from thy birth, been better,
Nor more deserving of respect, than
Nor was the claim of Lazarus to Heaven,
Improved by his companionship with thee,
But that he bowed not, in idolatry,
To a golden calf, which, interpreted,
Means adoration of a wealthy Fool!
This sacrilege has been, amongst mankind
So nearly universal, hitherto,
That an exception has been ever deemed
A most remarkable phenomenon!
And while thou shalt continue to succumb
To any less authority than God's,
Or Reason's (its admitted substitute,
In all emergencies apocryphal :
For understanding cometh from the Lord,
Or Solomon, for ance, mistook the truth)
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