And, like a spendthrift, pawned my heritage
To pitiless Jews, and paid a monstrous toll
To knaves and usurers,–and all to wage
Fair war with black–legs, men who dared to gauge
My youth’s bright honour as an antique thing,
A broadsword to their fencing point and edge.
So the game went. And even yet I cling
To my mad humour, reckoning up each stake,
Each fair coin lost.–O miserable slaves,
Who for the sake of gold, the poorest thing
Man ever won from the earth’s bosom, take
To rope or poison, and who labour not
Even to “dig dishonourable graves,”
See one who has lost a pound for every groat,
For every penny of your squandering!