O Gold! Why call we misers miserable?
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.

Love or lust 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.

Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign
O’er congress, whether royalist or liberal?
Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain?
(That make old Europe’s journals squeak and gibber all.)
Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain
Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?
The shade of Buonaparte’s noble daring?—
Jew Rothschild, and his fellow-Christian, Baring.

Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte,
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.

>>24551410 (OP)
Based Don Juan poster.

>And greedy Avarice by him did ride,
>Upon a Camell loaden all with gold;
>Two iron coffers hong on either side,
>With precious mettall full as they might hold;
>And in his lap an heape of coine he told;
>For of his wicked pelfe his God he made,
>And unto hell him selfe for money sold;
>Accursed usurie was all his trade,
>And right and wrong ylike in equall ballaunce waide.

>His life was nigh unto deaths doore yplast,
>And thred-bare cote, and cobled shoes he ware,
>Ne scarse good morsell all his life did tast,
>But both from backe and belly still did spare,
>To fill his bags, and richesse to compare;
>Yet chylde ne kinsman living had he none
>To leave them to; but thorough daily care
>To get, and nightly feare to lose his owne,
>He led a wretched life unto him selfe unknowne.

>Most wretched wight, whom nothing might suffise,
>Whose greedy lust did lacke in greatest store,
>Whose need had end, but no end covetise,
>Whose wealth was want, whose plenty made him pore,
>Who had enough, yet wished ever more;
>A vile disease, and eke in foote and hand
>A grievous gout tormented him full sore,
>That well he could not touch, nor go, nor stand;
>Such one was Avarice, the fourth of this faire band.

Epic poetry battle between Byron and Spenser! I know who my money's on.

>Full in the middle of this pleasantness
>There stood a marble altar, with a tress
>Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
>Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
>Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
>And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
>For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
>Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
>Of brightness so unsullied, that therein>A melancholy spirit well might win
>Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
>Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
>Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
>The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
>To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
>Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
>Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
>To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.