The Golden Test

There is no god but gold, my son,
Each man but wins his price.
The man who fails is the man to shun
To be poor the only vice.
What you deserve is what you ve won
Earth s justice is precise.
The picture fails that does not sell.
The poem none will buy
Comes not from Hippocrene's well:
For it the fount was dry.
Only the totterers hear the knell;
Only the worthless die.
If, Poet, you have heavenly thought,
Transmute it line by line
To gold wherewith the world is bought:
Then may it truly shine.
Unpurchased, see, it counts for naught
A pearl before the swine.