Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 250=322.= the Miser
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Next comes the miser; palsied, jealous, lean, He looks the very skeleton of Spleen! 'Mid forests drear, he haunts, in spectred gloom, Some desert abbey or some druid's tomb; Where hearsed in earth, his occult riches lay, Fleeced from the world, and buried from the day. With crutch in hand, he points his mineral rod, Limps to the spot, and turns the well-known sod. While there, involved in night, he counts his store By the soft tinklings of the golden ore, He shakes with terror lest the moon should spy, And the breeze whisper, where his treasures lie.
This wretch, who, dying, would not take one pill, If, living, he must pay a doctor's bill, Still clings to life, of every joy bereft; His God is gold, and his religion theft! And, as of yore, when modern vice was strange, Could leathern money current pass on 'change, His reptile soul, whose reasoning powers are pent Within the logic bounds of cent per cent, Would sooner coin his ears than stocks should fall, And cheat the pillory, than not cheat at all!
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=John Blair Linn,[78] 1777-1804.=
From "The Powers of Genius."