PEER
By the might of gold!
That plan is not at all a new one;
it’s been the soul of my career.
Even as a boy, I swept in dreams
far o’er the ocean on a cloud.
I soared with train and golden scabbard,—
and flopped down on all-fours again.
But still my goal, my friends, stood fast.—
There is a text, or else a saying,
somewhere, I don’t remember where,
that if you gained the whole wide world,
but lost yourself, your gain were but
a garland on a cloven skull.
That is the text — or something like it;
and that remark is sober truth.