Book IV: The Miser Who Had Lost His Treasure

'Tis use that constitutes possession.I ask that sort of men, whose passionIt is to get and never spend,Of all their toil what is the end?What they enjoy of all their laboursWhich do not equally their neighbours?Throughout this upper mortal strife,The miser leads a beggar's life.Old Aesop's man of hidden treasureMay serve the case to demonstrate.He had a great estate,But chose a second life to waitEre he began to taste his pleasure.This man, whom gold so little bless'd,Was not possessor, but possess'd.His cash he buried under ground,Where only might his heart be found;It being, then, his sole delightTo ponder of it day and night,And consecrate his rusty pelf,A sacred offering, to himself.In all his eating, drinking, travel,Most wondrous short of funds he seem'd;One would have thought he little dream'dWhere lay such sums beneath the gravel.A ditcher mark'd his coming to the spot,So frequent was it,And thus at last some little inkling gotOf the deposit.He took it all, and babbled not.One morning, ere the dawn,Forth had our miser goneTo worship what he loved the best,When, lo! he found an empty nest!Alas! what groaning, wailing, crying!What deep and bitter sighing!His torment makes him tearOut by the roots his hair.A passenger demandeth whySuch marvellous outcry.'They've got my gold! it's gone--it's gone!''Your gold! pray where?'--'Beneath this stone.''Why, man, is this a time of war,That you should bring your gold so far?You'd better keep it in your drawer;And I'll be bound, if once but in it,You could have got it any minute.''At any minute! Ah, Heaven knowsThat cash comes harder than it goes!I touch'd it not.'--'Then have the graceTo explain to me that rueful face,'Replied the man; 'for, if 'tis trueYou touch'd it not, how plain the case,That, put the stone back in its place,And all will be as well for you!'