Classic Poem

Economy's a very useful broom;
Yet should not ceaseless hunt about the room
To catch each straggling pin to make a plumb:
Too oft Economy's an iron vice,
That squeezes even the little guts of mice,
That peep with fearful eyes, and ask a crumb.

Proper Economy's a comely thing —
Good in a subject — better in a king;
Yet pushed too far, it dulls each finer feeling —
Most easily inclined to make folks mean;
Inclines them too, to villainy to lean,
To over-reaching, perjury, and stealing.

Even when the heart should only think of grief,
It creeps into the bosom like a thief,
And swallows up th' affections all so mild —
Witness the Jewess, and her only child: —

THE JEWESS AND HER SON.

Poor Mistress Levi had a luckless son,
Who, rushing to obtain the foremost seat,
In imitation of th' ambitious great,
High from the gallery, ere the play begun,
He fell all plump into the pit,
Dead in a minute as a nit:
In short, he broke his pretty Hebrew neck;
Indeed and very dreadful was the wreck!

The mother was distracted, raving, wild —
Shrieked, tore her hair, embraced and kissed her child —
Afflicted every heart with grief around:
Soon as the shower of tears was somewhat past,
And moderately calm th' hysteric blast,
She cast about her eyes in thought profound
And being with a saving knowledge blessed,
She thus the playhouse manager addressed:

" Sher, I 'm de moder of de poor Chew lad,
Dat meet mishfartin here so bad —
Sher, I muss haf de shilling back, you know,
Ass Moses haf not see de show. "

But as for Avarice, 'tis the very devil;
The fount, alas! of every evil:
The cancer of the heart — the worst of ills:
Wherever sown, luxuriantly it thrives;
No flower of virtue near it lives:
Like aconite, where'er it spreads, it kills.
In every soil behold the poison spring!
Can taint the beggar, and infect the king.

The mighty Marlborough pilfered cloth and bread;
So says that gentle satirist Squire Pope;
And Peterborough's Earl upon this head,
Affords us little room to hope,
That what the Twitnam bard avowed,
Might not be readily allowed.