Had I the choice,
Death, and not poverty, were my election.
To die is transient suffering; to be poor,
Interminable anguish.


... I think not of my wasted fortune.
As fate decrees, so riches come and vanish.
But I lament to find the love of friends
Hangs all unstrung because a man is poor.
And then with poverty comes disrespect;
From disrespect does self-dependence fail,
Then scorn and sorrow, following, overwhelm
The intellect; and when the judgment fails
The being perishes; and thus from poverty
Each ill that pains humanity proceeds.