Barnabe Googe

Of Money

Give money me, take friendship whoso list,
For friends are gone, come once adversity,
When money yet remaineth safe in chest,
That quickly can thee bring from misery;
Fair face show friends when riches do abound;
Come time of proof, farewell, they must away;
Believe me well, they are not to be found
If God but send thee once a lowering day.
Gold never starts aside, but in distress,
Finds ways enough to ease thine heaviness.

• Googe's dates are 1540 - 1594.
• The poet Thom Gunn has referred to poem as "beautiful." Are you surprised?
• Hilaire Belloc has an epigram that's somewhat similar:

  I'm tired of love, I'm still more tired of rhyme --
  But money gives me pleasure all the time.

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