VIII.

"And so you parted?" with a moisten'd eye, Said Morvale;--"nay, man, spare me the reply; Too much the Eve has moved me----" "Not to feel That for the serpent which thy looks reveal," Said Arden, sadly smiling; "yet in truth, See how the grey world grafts its age on youth; See how we learn to prize the bullion Vice, Coin'd in all shapes, yet still but Avarice; The stamp may vary,--you the coin may call 'Ambition,' 'Power,' 'Success,'--but Gold is all. Mine is the memoir of a selfish age: Turn every leaf--slight difference in the page; Through each, the same fierce struggle to secure Earth's one great end--distinction from the Poor; All our true wealth, like alchemists of old, Fused in the furnace--for a grain of gold.