Your Riches Taught Me Poverty
poem 299
Your Riches Taught Me Poverty - meaning Summary
Wealth Reframed by Love
The speaker contrasts worldly wealth with the inner richness found in devotion to a beloved. Material treasures—mines, gems, Golconda—serve as metaphors for an overwhelming emotional value that exceeds monetary measure. The poem frames the speaker as once content with small pleasures but now humbled into a form of voluntary poverty by the beloved’s superior "wealth." That admiration mingles with regret: a missed opportunity likened to a pearl lost in childhood. The tone is both exalting and plaintive, suggesting love’s capacity to elevate perception while exposing personal lack.
Read Complete AnalysesYour Riches taught me Poverty. Myself a Millionaire In little Wealths, as Girls could boast Till broad as Buenos Ayre You drifted your Dominions A Different Peru And I esteemed All Poverty For Life’s Estate with you Of Mines, I little know myself But just the names, of Gems The Colors of the Commonest And scarce of Diadems So much, that did I meet the Queen Her Glory I should know But this, must be a different Wealth To miss it beggars so I’m sure ’tis India all Day To those who look on You Without a stint without a blame, Might I but be the Jew I’m sure it is Golconda Beyond my power to deem To have a smile for Mine each Day, How better, than a Gem! At least, it solaces to know That there exists a Gold Altho’ I prove it, just in time Its distance to behold Its far far Treasure to surmise And estimate the Pearl That slipped my simple fingers through While just a Girl at School.
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