the wealthy sensitive to the winter's cold? "But," thou wilt say, "the
rich have the wherewithal to sate their hunger, the means to get rid of
thirst and cold." True enough; want can thus be soothed by riches,
wholly removed it cannot be. For if this ever-gaping, ever-craving want
is glutted by wealth, it needs must be that the want itself which can be
so glutted still remains. I do not speak of how very little suffices for
nature, and how for avarice nothing is enough. Wherefore, if wealth
cannot get rid of want, and makes new wants of its own, how can ye
believe that it bestows independence?'



SONG III.

THE INSATIABLENESS OF AVARICE.


Though the covetous grown wealthy
See his piles of gold rise high;
Though he gather store of treasure
That can never satisfy;
Though with pearls his gorget blazes,
Rarest that the ocean yields;
Though a hundred head of oxen
Travail in his ample fields;
Ne'er shall carking care forsake him
While he draws this vital breath,
And his riches go not with him,
When his eyes are closed in death.