COMPLAINING THAT HE HAD FALLEN AMONG THIEVES <br />Oh, Lytton, I have gambled with my soul, <br />And, like a spendthrift, pawned my heritage <br />To pitiless Jews, and paid a monstrous toll <br />To knaves and usurers,--and all to wage <br />Fair war with black--legs, men who dared to gauge <br />My youth's bright honour as an antique thing, <br />A broadsword to their fencing point and edge. <br />So the game went. And even yet I cling <br />To my mad humour, reckoning up each stake, <br />Each fair coin lost.--O miserable slaves, <br />Who for the sake of gold, the poorest thing <br />Man ever won from the earth's bosom, take <br />To rope or poison, and who labour not <br />Even to ``dig dishonourable graves,'' <br />See one who has lost a pound for every groat, <br />For every penny of your squandering!<br /><br />Wilfrid Scawen Blunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-love-sonnets-of-proteus-part-i-to-manon-xv/
