Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune,
He had not the method of making a fortune.
But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold,
Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold.
Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats,
And ask no questions but the price of votes.
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold;
Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Auro pulsa fides, auro venalia jura,
Aurum lex sequitur, mox sine lege pudor.
By gold all good faith has been banished; by gold our rights are abused; the law itself is influenced by gold, and soon there will be an end of every modest restraint.
No mortal thing can bear so high a price,
But that with mortal thing it may be bought.
Tis gold
Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and
Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up
Their deer to the stand o' the stealer: and 'tis gold
Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief;
Nay, sometimes hangs both thief and true man.
There is gold for you.
Sell me your good report.
What, shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?
There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Every man has his price.
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
BRONX RIVER
Yet I will look upon thy face again,
My own romantic Bronx, and it will be
A face more pleasant than the face of men.
Thy waves are old companions, I shall see
A well remembered form in each old tree
And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy.
BROOKS
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.</poem>
The streams, rejoiced that winter's work is done,
Talk of to-morrow's cowslips as they run.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take.
Sweet are the little brooks that run
O'er pebbles glancing in the sun, Singing in soothing tones.</poem>
Thou hastenest down between the hills to meet me at the road,
The secret scarcely lisping of thy beautiful abode
Among the pines and mosses of yonder shadowy height,
Where thou dost sparkle into song, and fill the woods with light.
See, how the stream has overflowed
Its banks, and o'er the meadow road
Is spreading far and wide!
The music of the brook silenced all conversation.
I wandered by the brook-side,
I wandered by the mill;
I could not hear the brook flow.
The noisy wheel was still.
