Selfishness

Search history, my boy, and see

What petty selfishness has done.

Find if you can one victory

That little minds have ever won.

There is no record there to read

Of men who fought for self alone,

No instance of a single deed

splendor they may proudly own.

Through all life's story you will find

The miser — with his hoarded gold —

A hermit, dreary and unkind,

An outcast from the human fold.

Men hold him up to view with scorn,

A creature by his wealth enslaved,

A spirit craven and forlorn,

Doomed by the money he has saved.

No man was ever truly great

Who sought to serve himself alone,

Who put himself above the state,

Above the friends about him thrown.

No man was ever truly glad

Who risked his joy on hoarded pelf,

And gave of nothing that he had

Through fear of needing it himself.

For selfishness is wintry cold,

And bitter are its joys at last,

The very charms it tries to hold,

With woes are quickly overcast.

And only he shall gladly live,

And bravely die when God shall call,

Who gathers but that he may give,

And with his fellows shares his all.