Classic Poem

I, from the clerk, receive my private key,
With curious circumstance and grave parade.
Now my strong box is on the table laid.
There's a stout wall between all folks and me.
The door is locked so that no one shall see.
Here with my fortune I sit down alone—
This glittering skeleton, this golden bone.
With what I do no man can disagree.
And all this pompous opening of locks
And shutting them again that I may look
As if by stealth into a black tin box,
And cut off coupons in a little book!
Here lies my wealth, swathed like a buried king.
From his dead hand I strip the jewelled ring.