George Gordon, Lord Byron, 'Don Juan'

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Don Juan

Oh, 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.…

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

“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.

By George Gordon, Lord Byron