Epigram On A Miser Who Had Built A Stately Mansion

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Title:     Epigram On A Miser Who Had Built A Stately Mansion
Author: George Borrow [More Titles by Borrow]

From the Cambrian British.

Of every pleasure is thy mansion void;
To ruin-heaps may soon its walls decline.
O heavens, that one poor fire's but employ'd,
One poor fire only for thy chimneys nine!

Towering white chimneys--kitchen cold and drear--
Chimneys of vanity and empty show--
Chimneys unwarm'd, unsoil'd throughout the year--
Fain would I heatless chimneys overthrow.

Plague on huge chimneys, say I, huge and neat,
Which ne'er one spark of genial warmth announce;
Ignite some straw, thou dealer in deceit--
Straw of starv'd growth--and make a fire for once!

The wretch a palace built, whereon to gaze,
And sighing, shivering there around to stray;
To give a penny would the niggard craze,
And worse than bane he hates the minstrel's lay.

[The end]
George Borrow's poem: Epigram On A Miser Who Had Built A Stately Mansion

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