What does the Ballade of Worldly Wealth by Andrew Lang poem mean?

Answer 1

For the first six lines of each stanza Andrew Lang describes what money can buy a person. He mentions how money can support the military ("marches soldiers to and fro"), how a person can buy love with money ("gaineth ladies with sweet eyes"), how money can turn people greedy and bad ("money maketh evil show"), and how the church misuses money ("money maketh sin as snow").

Andrew focuses a lot on religion, becasue throughout history a person could buy penitence. Some people think this is a way of cheating to get forgiveness and it shows how "money hungry" a church can be.

At the end of each satnza, however, Andrew always comes back to the idea that money cannot buy everything ("these alone can ne'er bestow, youth, and health, and paradise"). Translated he is pretty much saying:

Everything I just said about what money can buy is great, but money can never buy a person immortalitly (which is living forever), and money can never buy a person good health forever (people can colds and cancer), and money can never buy a person perfection in life (there will always be some problems).

So, what Andrew is trying to do in his writting is tell people that money can buy a person nice objects, and comforts in life, but money cannot buy you everything and money can make people greedy.