Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/123

ISRAEL FREYER'S BID FOR GOLD ISRAEL FREYER'S BID FOR GOLD

24, 1869

Zounds! how the price went flashing through

Wall street, William, Broad street, New!

All the specie in all the land

Held in one Ring by a giant hand—

For millions more it was ready to pay,

And throttle the Street on hangman's-day.

Up from the Gold Pit's nether hell,

While the innocent fountain rose and fell,

Loud and higher the bidding rose,

And the bulls, triumphant, faced their foes.

It seemed as if Satan himself were in it:

Lifting it—one per cent a minute—

Through the bellowing broker, there amid,

Who made the terrible, final bid!

High over all, and ever higher,

Was heard the voice of Israel Freyer,—

A doleful knell in the storm-swept mart,—

I'll give One Hundred and Sixty!"

Israel Freyer—the Government Jew—

Good as the best—soaked through and through

With credit gained in the year he sold

Our Treasury's precious hoard of gold;

Now through his thankless mouth rings out

The leaguers' last and cruellest shout!

Pity the shorts? Not they, indeed,

While a single rival's left to bleed!

Down come dealers in silks and hides,

Crowding the Gold Room's rounded sides,

Jostling, trampling each other's feet,

Uttering groans in the outer street; 93