Gold in the mountain,
And gold in the glen,
And greed in the heart,
Heaven having no part,
And unsatisfied men.
Gold in the Mountain
Analysis, meaning and summary of Herman Melville's poem Gold in the Mountain
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The poem is a simple expression of mans greed for needful things. Greed is not heavenly. Simply because greed is not from heaven. Man is never satified, enough is never enough. The poem is simple, and so is the meaning. It could have been expressed much better.
This poem represents greed in a way that makes no sense. The poet uses what I consider to be a cofusing analogy for greed and gold.
THis poem was awesome. Loved it lots.
I like how this poem loses its meter after the first three lines. The fourth line is awkward and the fifth is
difficult to spit out with the word “unsatisfied” right in the middle. It seems to me like “Heaven having no
part” slows the poem down, almost to the verge of an uncomfortable stop and then “And unsatisfied
men” is that uncomfortable stop. It’s cool how these lines act like this in the pronunciation of the poem,
but also (arguably) parallel the natural progression of such a situation, such that “Heaven having no part”
disrupts peaceful, predictable, comfortable, etc. existence and that “unsatisfied men” bring such
existence to a dead stop. Very cool.