With proud disdain I had regarded those
Who—low by birth, by nature lower—yet
Their upstart confidence in riches set;
And could I calmly Agnes now behold
Her brow encircled with a coronet,
Endure her haughty smile, her greeting cold,
Who owed her triumph solely to the power of gold?
I felt the press of poverty, and she
Had only to desire—and to possess;
Yet why should sight of her prosperity