Sea-rimmed and teeming with millions poured out on thy granite shore
Surge upon surge, many-nationed, O City far-famed for the roar
Of thy cavernous iron streets and thy towers half hung in the sun,
Rising in layer on layer, twelve cities piled upon one,
All feeding and sleeping and breeding, enormous, half palace, half den,
With ever a tide washing through thee whose clamoring waters are men,
O where is the hand of thy builder? What god, canst thou tell,
Hath his hand on the clay of thy face? Or what demon from Hell?
I have viewed with the eye of the stranger and the pride of
the New World man
The mountainous leap of thy glory, the miles of thy endless span,
And my heart has gone up with thy towers and my love has fallen as dew
On thy night-blooming lamps in rows on thy beautiful Avenue.
I have stood with a seaman’s glass on the roofs of thy high hotels;
I have rolled through the sheer ravines where the cliff dweller dwells;
I have peered from the place of the Tomb far up where the hills break free
And the length of the lordly River comes down as a bride to the sea;
I have fled with a roar through the rock where the myriad lights flash by;
I have heard the song of the soaring steel come down from the sky;
I have watched as a lover thy waters all mottled with cloud and with sun
Where the ocean comes in to caress thee, O Beautiful One;
And the days and the years of my life are a gift unto thee,
And I dwell in thy marvelous gates, O Goddess cast up by the sea!
I have surged with the morning throng down the gulf of the Great White Way
That gashes thy granite length from the towers of sleep to the Bay
When the West rolls in with a rush and the North comes down with a roar
And the tramp of the Island men is loud on thy island shore.
Shoulder to shoulder they come from the loins of a hundred lands,
The men with the New World brains and the men with the Old World hands,
And the vision is bright on the sky of the City to be
And the joy of the morning is there and the thrill of the sea.
As a surf is the sound of thy labor, O City; as wine
Is the hum of thy human streets filled with faces divine
When from building on populous building thy power unfurled
Leaps down to the sea and off through the air to the ends of the world.
I have loafed round the banging wharves where the foreign freighters lie;
I have watched the bridge-weaving shuttles pass over the sky;
I have felt the quick leap of thy drills where the builders of Rome
Swing the rock from the hole in the ground for the walls of thy home;
I have heard far down through the canyons the clamor and yell
When the brokers are out with their signs and the Curb is a hell;
I have sounded thy chattering markets; I have watched the noon hour
Come over thy toiling miles with a slack of thy terrible power
When story on story lets out on the pavement below
And thy streets are a-swarm with the Jew and the parks overflow.
Far-famed is the rustling hour when the shoppers flow in,
For miles thy walks are abloom and the monstrous fairs begin,
And the aisles of the merchants are crowded, and dark-faced boys,
Are out on the corners with flowers, and fakirs are there with their toys.
I have paused with the passing throng where the hoyden sea wind whirls
And whisks round the tall gray towers the skirts of the laughing girls;
I have watched round the wonder of windows the beauty and grace;
I have breasted the streaming throngs and have come to the quiet place
Of the Fountain, and weary with tramping have lounged on the benches there
With the homeless man of the streets, the man with the unkempt hair;
Have given him soul for soul as we watched far up in the skies
The just-seen worker wave and the slab of marble rise
To its place on the fortieth story. Still lit by the sun
Is the face of the golden clock when the toil of the day is done.
Then the long gray miles are a-murmur and the builders
come down from the sky,
And Speed throws her myriad shuttles and the ambulance hurries by,
And the foam of the evening papers is white on the living sea,
And the deep defiles are black with men as far as the eye can see,
And loaded trains rush north and west from thy mighty central heart,
And the rivers foam and the bridges sag till their strong
steel cables start,
And the Rock drinks in its thousands from the moving flood in the street
As the strong male tide goes out with the roar of a million feet.
I know when the night comes down that a beautiful Siren awakes.
I have seen the flash of her eyes and the light that her shadow makes
On the rain-wet Avenue when the flutes of pleasure are heard
And she dances her way to the wine cup and sings like a bird.
Hand in hand go the sons of Youth and the daughters of Beauty divine,
And the children of Hunger are there who have trodden the
grapes of their wine,
And the thousands pour and pour through the huge illumined Fair,
And the booths of a hundred lands are bright and the
Wonder-worker is there.
The red star is out on the roof and the horses are off on the wall,
And the girl and the dog are blown along and the flashing water fall,
And the flush of thy far-flung revel goes up to the ribbons of sky,
And forgotten Orion sinks down and the Pleiades die.
I have trailed down the pleasant river; I have tramped where
the iron “L’s”
Go thundering down through the haunts of care; I have slummed
through the hidden hells;
I have jostled the mingling Bowery where the stream of the races rolls;
I know the town where the yellow man goes by on his velvet soles;
I have threaded the still, dark canyons where the clustered towers rise;
Not a foot is heard of the thousands; they are ghosts on the
midnight skies;
I have seen o’er the glamour of waters thy piles upon shadowy piles
Standing out on the canvas of night and twinkling for miles upon miles.
As a grail is the gleam of thy towers and the glow of the Great White Way,
And a thousand ships have sailed and sailed to the lure of
the lights on the Bay,
And the spell of thy song, O Enchantress, is sweet on the southern air,
And the shepherd far out on the plains feels the sting of thy hair.
Thou art young with the youth of them, strong with the strength
of them, filled with the beauty of girls;
Thy throat where the River gleams is beaded with lamps as with pearls;
And the languor of night is around thee and the waters rise and fall,
And over invisible bridges slow fireworms crawl,
And the Ferries that glide o’er the bay, o’er the rivers that lave
The feet of thy emerald towers, are lighted swans on the wave,
As Merlin had walked o’er thy waters, or Prospero’s eye
Were watching alternate old cities line out on the sky,
One moment Jerusalem gleams and thy towers are holy and white,
And lo, at the turn of a glass, old Babylon etched on the night
With high summer gardens abloom and the wealth of the world in her hair;
Then Carnival laughs in thy streets and Cairo is there
Barbaric all over with brooches and fountains of fire
Till the new day quenches the lamps and flares over Tyre.
_The Smart Set_ _Edwin Davies Schoonmaker_