A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (3rd ed.)/The Death of the Miser
The Death of the Miser.
With clammy hands and lab'ring breath,
His dim eyes glazed by coming death;
Shivering with cold, mere skin and bone,
In a dark room, and all alone,
Without one friend or comfort nigh,
An aged Miser lay to die.
With groan protracted, long and deep,
He wakes from out a troubled sleep;
And o'er his pale and sickly face
A ghastly smile hath left its trace;
Faint, brief, and transient in its stay,
Like sunshine on a winter's day.
Again, the old man smiles, and see!
All shrunk and withered tho' he be,
His wasted form with pain he drags
From 'mong a paltry heap of rags,
On which for years he'd laid his care-worn head,
The wealthy Miser had no other bed.
With weak and trembling step he steals
Across the floor, and lo! he kneels;
But not in prayer—no, 'neath that board
Where he hath knelt, his gold is stored;
And, as with last expiring strength.
He lifts the secret door at length.
And feels (for 'tis too dark to see)
His treasured coins, his ecstasy
Exceeds all bounds, as thus he whispers low,
"'Tis here! 'tis mine! but not a soul must know!"
Hark! hark! he's counting, one, two, three:
Oh! that a human mind so sunk should be—
The ruling passion truly to the last—
As one by one, the worshipped coins are passed
Through his lean fingers, how their chink
Deep in his sordid soul doth sink.
That so employed a man should be
On the threshold of eternity!
Is there no better feeling that may part
This fatal passion from the old man's heart?
Alas! there is not—gold and gold alone
Can warm a Miser's heart, to all besides 'tis stone!
Still, still, he 's counting, still the old man kneels,
Till o'ertaxed, brain alike and reason reels,
Dispelled by sudden madness, darkness flies,
The Miser sees, but with a madman's eyes.
And now to him his gold appears
Bedewed with weeping orphans' tears;
And pass before him, one by one,
Good deeds that he might have done;
While actions, which he deemed unknown,
Are to his aching vision shown;
And blood, aye blood! all red and gory,
Help to fill the mind's mad story;
For if 'twere true, as rumour told,
In far off lands, the Miser sold
His fellow man, whose only sin,
Was being horn with darker skin!
He closed his eyes, 'twas all in vain,
There was the slave, the whip, the chain;
While frantic mothers, pointing wild
To fatherless and starving child,
In accents of deep hate inquire,
For how much dross he sold its sire?
"Take, take, he cried, in tones of wild affright,
These fearful visions from my tortured sight,
I will restore"—! when the stem tones of fate,
Hissed in his ears, the fatal words, Too Late!
With one wild shriek, one loud unearthly yell,
Never again to rise, the wretched Miser fell;
Trembling with illness, howling with dismay,
The spirit of the Miser passed away.
Could not his almost boundless wealth
Purchase one single hour of health?
No! the fell tyrant claims his own,
For all the gold that e*er was known.
Bankrupt in body, as in mind.
He died, and left his gold behind!