Print Article

·

·

Too many people on the earth. Too few

who hold the oak door open, or who nod

to the passing stranger as to the passing god.

 

Look from the stars and you will see whereto

this hungry fungus, man, has spread his drab

compactions, and is spreading, till the space

made rich by nature for his ease and grace

is petrified, as fruit is by a scab.

 

Packed on this dwindling planet, famished, men

will push and fight like beasts. No grandeur then,

no high design, no epic dream, no play,

no poised serenity in what they say

nor reasoned kindness in the things they do.

 

This is not fancy, this is deathbed true.

 

—Max Eastman