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[Newspaper clipping]

SELFISHNESS.

A man has built a chimney stack be-
tween the east and me
And spoiled a patch of golden sky where
beauty used to be;
And yonder to the westward was a
clump of maples tall,
But now an ugly barn is there and I
have lost them all.

The quiet and the calm are gone from
scenes which once I knew,
The clover fields of yesterday the
trains go rushing through;
The brook which laughed and danced
along its journey to the sea,
Now wears upon its weary face the
look of slavery.

How fair the dawn of day would be but
for that shimney stack,
How fair the west if only man could put
those maples back!
Yet almost eerywhere we turn some
lovely view to scan,
We find the realms of beauty being
encroached upon by man.

Yet why should I complain at this, why
mourn the maple tree,
When day by day my selfishness steals
beauty's charm from me?
I will not check some whim of mine to
serve the broader view,
But raise my barns and chimney stacks
for what I want to do.

--Edgar A. Guest.
by Edgar A Guest