The Impact of a Dollar Upon the Heart
The Impact of a Dollar Upon the Heart - meaning Summary
Small Versus Vast Wealth
Crane contrasts the modest, intimate power of a single dollar—warming hearth and table—with the corrupting, cacophonous force of immense wealth. A million dollars brings flunkeys, ostentation, and the commercial desecration of beauty and labor. Art and honest craft become mere baubles beneath nouveau riche tastes; social values and work are forgotten as frivolity and servility prevail. The poem satirically links money’s scale to moral and aesthetic decay.
Read Complete AnalysesThe impact of a dollar upon the heart Smiles warm red light, Sweeping from the hearth rosily upon the white table, With the hanging cool velvet shadows Moving softly upon the door. The impact of a million dollars Is a crash of flunkeys, And yawning emblems of Persia Cheeked against oak, France and a sabre, The outcry of old beauty Whored by pimping merchants To submission before wine and chatter. Silly rich peasants stamp the carpets of men, Dead men who dreamed fragrance and light Into their woof, their lives; The rug of an honest bear Under the feet of a cryptic slave Who speaks always of baubles, Forgetting state, multitude, work, and state, Champing and mouthing of hats, Making ratful squeak of hats, Hats.
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