Explore "Lambert Hutchins" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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, / 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.
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, / 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, / 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?
Why, it wasn't worth a damn!