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44 Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, The signet of its all-enslaving power Upon a shining ore, and called it gold: Before whose image bow the vulgar great, The vainly rich, the miserable proud, The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, And with blind feelings reverence the power That grinds them to the dust of misery. But in the temple of their hireling hearts Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn All earthly things but virtue.

Since tyrants, by the sale of human life, Heap luxuries to their sensualism, and fame To their wide-wasting and insatiate pride, Success has sanctioned to a credulous world The ruin, the disgrace, the woe of war. His hosts of blind and unresisting dupes The despot numbers; from his cabinet These puppets of his schemes he moves at will, Even as the slaves by force or famine driven, Beneath a vulgar master, to perform A task of cold and brutal drudgery;— Hardened to hope, insensible to fear, Scarce living pullies of a dead machine, Mere wheels of work and articles of trade, That grace the proud and noisy pomp of wealth! The harmony and happiness of man Yields to the wealth of nations; that which lifts