So needful it is to have money

This poem by Arthur Hugh Clough, from the mid-Victorian age of boom & bust & banking failures, is a reminder that there is nothing new in the parvenu money-raker lording it over both the nobility & the poor.


As I sat in the Café I said to myself,
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking,
But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.

I sit at my table en grand seigneur,
And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor;
Not only the pleasure itself of good living,
But also the pleasure of now and then giving:
So pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So pleasant it is to have money.

They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
And how one ought never to think of one’s self,
How pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking—
My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.

I cannot but ask, in the park and the streets
When I look at the number of persons one meets,
What e’er in the world the poor devils can do
Whose fathers and mothers can’t give them a sou.
So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So needful it is to have money.

I ride, and I drive, and I care not a d—n,
The people look up and they ask who I am;
And if I should chance to run over a cad,
I can pay for the damage, if ever so bad.
So useful it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So useful it is to have money.

It was but this winter I came up to town,
And already I’m gaining a sort of renown;
Find my way to good houses without much ado,
And beginning to see the nobility too.
So useful it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So useful it is to have money.

O dear what a pity they ever should lose it,
Since they are the people that know how to use it;
So easy, so stately, such manners, such dinners,
And yet, after all, it is we are the winners.
So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So needful it is to have money.

It’s all very well to be handsome and tall,
Which certainly makes you look well at a ball;
It’s all very well to be clever and witty,
But if you are poor, why it’s only a pity.
So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So needful it is to have money.

There’s something undoubtedly in a fine air,
To know how to smile and be able to stare,
High breeding is something, but well-bred or not,
In the end the one question is, what have you got.
So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So needful it is to have money.

And the angels in pink and the angels in blue,
In muslins and moirés so lovely and new,
What is it they want, and so wish you to guess,
But if you have money, the answer is Yes.
So needful, they tell you, is money, heigh-ho!
So needful it is to have money.

Link
Arthur Hugh Clough

Related posts
Ogden Nash on a poor banker

Schadenfreude