"In my own shire" by A.E. Housman

IN my own shire, if I was sad,
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
And standing hills, long to remain,	5
Shared their short-lived comrade’s pain
And bound for the same bourn as I,
On every road I wandered by,
Trod beside me, close and dear,
The beautiful and death-struck year:	10
Whether in the woodland brown
I heard the beechnut rustle down,
And saw the purple crocus pale
Flower about the autumn dale;
Or littering far the fields of May	15
Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,
And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.
Yonder, lightening other loads,
The seasons range the country roads,	20
But here in London streets I ken
No such helpmates, only men;
And these are not in plight to bear,
If they would, another’s care.
They have enough as ’tis: I see	25
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;	30
And till they drop they needs must still
Look at you and wish you ill.  --A.E. Housman

Aw, poor Housman. He was having a rough day (life) there in the city.

It's those lines: The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind. It reminds of one of my observations about depression - it makes people, entirely unpurposely, act selfishly, because it is taking all the energy they have to keep from drowning. There's nothing left over to consider other people. It's like you're on crutches - it's hard to carry someone else, even fore a moment, and I think that being kind and courteous and generally charitable is series of carrying other people for a few or several moments. When you're in cast or on crutches or your leg is broken, you just can't.