Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow; And damning their own selves to Tantal's smart, Wealth breeding want, more blessed, more wretched grow. Yet to those fools heaven such wit doth impart As what their hands do hold, their heads do know, And knowing, love, and loving, lay apart, As sacred things, far from all danger's show. But that rich fool, who by blind fortune's lot The richest gem of love and life enjoys, And can with foul abuse such beauties blot, Let him, deprived of sweet but unfelt joys, Exiled for aye from those high treasures which He knows not, grow in only folly rich. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WILLIAM AND HELEN by GOTTFRIED AUGUST BURGER HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE CANONIZATION by JOHN DONNE THE LAST SIGNAL by THOMAS HARDY THE COLLEGE COLONEL by HERMAN MELVILLE TO A FOIL'D EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONAIRE by WALT WHITMAN PHILOCTETES: PHILOCTETES CALLS FOR DEATH by AESCHYLUS THE QUEEN IN FRANCE; AN ANCIENT SCOTTISH BALLAD by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN |