THE NEIGHBORLY MAN

By Edgar Albert Guest

Some are eager to be famous, some are striving to be great,

Some are toiling to be leaders of their nation or their state,

And in every man's ambition, if we only understood,

There is much that's fine and splendid; every hope is mostly good.

So I cling unto the notion that contented I will be

If the men upon life's pathway find a needed friend in me.

I'd like to be a neighbor in the good old-fashioned way,

Finding much to do for others, but not over much to say.

I like to read the papers, but I do not yearn to see

What the journal of the morning has been moved to say of me;

In the silences and shadows I would live my life and die

And depend for fond remembrance on some grateful passers-by.