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Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

Miss Kilmansegg: Her Moral

Hood, Thomas

Thomas Hood

(Popular English poet and humorist; 1799–1845)

GOLD! Gold! Gold! Gold!

Bright and yellow, hard and cold,

Molten, graven, hammer’d, and roll’d;

Heavy to get, and light to hold;

Hoarded, barter’d, bought, and sold,

Stolen, borrow’d, squander’d, doled:

Spurn’d by the young, but hugg’d by the old

To the very verge of the churchyard mould;

Price of many a crime untold:

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

Good or bad a thousand-fold!

How widely its agencies vary—

To save—to ruin—to curse—to bless—

As even its minted coins express,

Now stamp’d with the image of Good Queen Bess,

And now of a bloody Mary.