Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AVARICE, by JOSEPH BEAUMONT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AVARICE, by                    
First Line: And truly yesterday / I did suspect as much: away
Last Line: Midst monsters, thou must monster be.
Subject(s): Greed; Avarice; Cupidity


AND truly yesterday
I did suspect as much: away
Foule misgotten Elf,
Thou cheat'st thy silly self
In thinking I had any drift
To favor thee by praising Thrift.

2

Hence odious Avarice,
Thou mad & self-revenging Vice,
Who dost no toyl refuse
For that thou dar'st not use.
Thrift onely gathers, Thou dost scrape,
She to injoy, Thou but to keep.

3

Thou Jayler art, but She
The Steward of her gold: with thee
It rusts, with her it shines:
Nor do its deepest Mines
Smother & lock it up so fast
As the vast gulph of thy dark chest.

4

For that dark chest of thine
No pioner must hope to mine,
Since thy Necessitie
Cannot sufficient be
To digg thy treasure thence; so deep
Thou, to thy loss, thy gains dost keep.

5

Less doth the Thunders crack
Than news of petty Charges, wake
Thy wretched fears; & though
All thy religion's how
The best of money to possess,
Thy Money never current is.

6

Some Beast or other is
The embleme of each other Vice:
But never Brute was yet
So brutish as to get
The world a copie of foule Thee:
Midst Monsters, thou must Monster be.





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