Explore "On a Miser who had Built a Stately Mansion" by George Borrow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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.