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<h2>The Richer Man</h2> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> YOU know how it is—you have had the gain, The sweetness and pleasures of life, I the fruitless striving, the heat to attain, The toil, the failure, the strife. </div> <div class="stanza"> Then we chance to come by the will of fate To the warmth of one woman’s eyes, And fate decrees it is not too late To give me a great surprise. </div> <div class="stanza"> And the woman turns with matchless grace The bloom of her tender cheek, And her red lips smiling—her glorious face, Her glance so loving and meek. </div> <div class="stanza"> To me—to the penniless bankrupt one, And I find my portion at last, And heaven as real, when all is done, As the hell of the bitter past. </div> <div class="stanza"> The glories of earth are but chaff in the wind, The riches of earth but a song, Now listen, my brother, I think you will find You have tried to do me a wrong.{148} </div> <div class="stanza"> You had all that to me had been denied, I starved while you feasted well, You have fame, and a hundred things beside, You have watched your coffers swell. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet when we come by the will of fate To the warmth of one woman’s eyes, And fate declares it is not too late To give me a great surprise. </div> <div class="stanza"> You come with the weight of your yellow gold, And the trappings of your success; You come with your bearing, courtly and bold, You woo in your haughtiness. </div> <div class="stanza"> You try to dazzle her eyes of blue, And you try to steal for yourself The heart of a woman good and true, Go, be content with your pelf. </div> <div class="stanza"> Learn there are treasures you may not grasp, Joys you must surely miss, The hand you court lies in my clasp The lips are my own to kiss. </div> <div class="stanza"> A penniless fellow! you used to say— Own to the truth if you can— We stand here together this summer’s day, And I am the richer man. </div> </div></div> {149} <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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