• Author: Guest, Edgar A.
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 6
• Page Number:
• Date: 11 14 1917
• Tags:
• poetry

PRAISE

We’re eager for money, we hunger for fame, We battle for things to possess; The houses we build we want to have filled With the treasures that stand for success. But when it’s all over and peace settles down, In the glow of the low sinking sun, We want to recall, be it ever so small, Some unselfish service we’ve done.

The top of the ladder we struggle to reach, We scramble and fight for a place; We are slaves to our pride, and we’re unsatistied Unless we are up in the race. But deep in the breasts of us all there’s the wish As we journey through life to be known As the big hearted men who took time now and then To serve some one, not of their own.

We may boast as we will of the work that we do And may glory in prizes we gain; We may draw some conceit from our jousts with defeat, And our rise to victorious reign; But after it’s over the joy that counts most Is the thought that we’re leaving behind, Through the records of strife in our volume of life, A number of deeds that were kind.

We’d rather be praised for the help we have been Than cheered for the money we’ve made; We want men to say, when our souls pass away We were ready and willing to aid. We fight and we scramble for fortune and fame Till our pockets with silver are lined, But the greatest of praise at the end of our days Is to have it be said we were kind.

—Edgar A. Guest.