Classic Poem

Wealth — wealth — wealth — wealth! I never had been led,
From all I'd thought and dreamed and heard and read,
To think so much wealth, in whatever while,
Could be raked up into one shining pile!
Not long ago, a hundred dollars clear,
Big as a hay-stack would to me appear;
When first a thousand dollars made me smile,
I sympathized with Craesus quite a while;
But looking round here makes me feel the same
As if I hadn't a nickel to my name!

Wealth — wealth! why, every acre I behold
Has cost a mine of Californi' gold!
The very ground one building here might fill
Would almost buy the town of Tompkins Hill!

There isn't a house my scrutiny has crossed
But catches several figures in its cost;
And when your eyes into the parlor go
('Mongst things they leave the curtains up to show),
And see the carpets, rugs, and draperies rich,
That twine ten dollars into every stitch,
And view great pictures that such prices hold
As if the painter's brush were dipped in gold;

And when along the roads great buggies glide,
With covers on, and rich-dressed folks inside,
And up on top a man to drive the team —
As fat as any cat brought up on cream
(Man and team both), the driver dressed as gay
As if he meant to marry that same day,
Or wed his boss's daughter that same night
(Which some consider as the coachman's right.
And think it's understood, when he engages,
A daughter should be thrown in with his wages),
When even the horses, as so many do,
Wear jewelry that cost a farm or two,
You wonder in what tree-top grew the cash
To buy so much reality and trash!

Wealth — wealth — wealth — wealth! the very corner stores
Are gold-mines from the ceilings to the floors!
The shop we thought would ruin Cousin Phil,
Because 'twas over-large for Tompkins Hill,
Would, in the small vest-pocket, lose its way,
Of one man's place I wandered through to-day!

And then the banks — a hundred on one street —
As full of money as an egg of meat
(Although one never knows beyond a doubt
What colored chickens they'll be hatching out);

And then the churches — elegant to view —
An independent fortune in each pew:
One window-pane in one big church that's here
Cost more than our old preacher made per year!
(A city's pastor's salary, I declare,
Would keep him all his life, with cash to spare,
A-preaching in that little house of wood,
Holding his hearers' eyes in all he could,
With rolling meadows and green trees in view,
And fresh-complexioned streamlets wandering through);
And then the rich school-houses in this town,
Where children can be taught up stairs and down,
Swifter (if not so thorough), I suppose,
Than in the small log school-house, where I rose
From Numeration to the Rule of Three,
And had Irregular Verbs whipped into me;

And then the railroad stations, where, each day,
Fortunes on wheels rush in and drive away;
And then the steamboats paddling up and down —
Towns swimming on their way from town to town;

And then the ladies, in both street and store,
Done up in silks and satins, spangled o'er
As if it had rained diamonds for an hour,
And they had gone and stood out in the shower;

And then the rich and idle-houred young men —
The rising generation's " Upper 10 "
(With the " I " left off), who each day, no doubt,
Spend twice as much as all my " setting out, "
When Father said, " The family craft is full;
Launch your own craft and show us how to pull. "