Recipe For A Multi-Millionaire:

To a cupful of negative goodness
    Add the pleasure of giving advice.
Sift in a peck of dry sermons,
    And flavor with brimstone or ice.

    - Life.

To a presence that's much more than queenly,
    Add a manner that's quite Vere de Vere;
You feel like a worm in her sight when she says,
    "Only $300, my dear!"

    - Life.

Stuff a hired dress-suit case with an effort to please,
    Add a half-dozen stumbles and trips;
Remove his right thumb from the cranberry sauce,
    Roll in crumbs, melted butter and tips.

    - Life.

Now Merdle, en passant, I had known for a score
Of years, when a dinner with Jones, Brown or Smith
As good as one gets for a quarter or more,
Was a thing unthought of, or else but a myth
In Merde's day-dreaming of things yet in store,
When hope painted visions of a painted abode,
And hope never hoped for anything more--
I'm sure never dreamed he would dine a la mode.

In dreams wildest fancy I doubt if he dreamed,
That time in its changes that wears rocky shores,
Should change what so changeless certainly seemed,
Till Merdle, Jack Merdle, would own twenty stores,
Much more own a bank, e'en the horse that he rode,
Or pay half the debts of the wild oats he sowed.

I knew when he worked at his old father's trade,
And thought he would stick to h...

In the upper circles
    Moves a famous man
Who has had no equal
    Since the world began.
He was once a broker
    Down by the exchange;
He is now a nabob--
    Don't you think it strange?

In his low back office,
    Near the Bowling Green,
With his brother brokers
    He was often seen;--
Shaving and discounting,
    Dabbling in the stocks,
He achieved a fortune
    Of a million ROCKS!'

Next he formed a marriage
    With a lady fair,
And his splendid carriage
    Bowled about THE square,
Where his spacious mansion
    Like a palace stood,
Envied and admired
    By the multitude.

Then he took the tour
    Of the continent,
Bearer of dispatches
    From the President:
A legation but...

No, not from tuning-forks of gold
    Take I my key for singing;
From Upper Seats no order bold
    Can set my music ringing;
But groans the slave through sense of wrong,
    And naught my voice can smother;
As flame leaps up, so leaps my song
    For my oppressed brother.

And thus the end comes swift and sure...
    Thus life itself must leave me;
For what can these my brothers poor
    In compensation give me,
Save tears for ev'ry tear and sigh?--
    (For they are rich in anguish).
A millionaire of tears am I,
    And mid my millions languish.