| I HAVE two monuments besides this granite obelisk: | |
| One, the house I built on the hill, | |
| With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate; | |
| The other, the lake-front in Chicago, | |
| Where the railroad keeps a switching yard, | 5 |
| With whistling engines and crunching wheels, | |
| And smoke and soot thrown over the city, | |
| And the crash of cars along the boulevard,— | |
| A blot like a hog-pen on the harbor | |
| Of a great metropolis, foul as a sty. | 10 |
| I helped to give this heritage | |
| To generations yet unborn, with my vote | |
| In the House of Representatives, | |
| And the lure of the thing was to be at rest | |
| From the never-ending fright of need, | 15 |
| And to give my daughters gentle breeding, | |
| And a sense of security in life. | |
| But, you see, though I had the mansion house | |
| And traveling passes and local distinction, | |
| I could hear the whispers, whispers, whispers, | 20 |
| Wherever I went, and my daughters grew up | |
| With a look as if someone were about to strike them; | |
| And they married madly, helter-skelter, | |
| Just to get out and have a change. | |
| And what was the whole of the business worth? | 25 |
| Why, it wasn’t worth a damn! | |
