Crass rays streaming from the vestibules;
Cafes glittering like jeweled teeth;
High-flung signs
Blinking yellow phosphorescent eyes;
...
Drab discoloration
Of faces, façades, pawn-shops,
Second-hand clothing,
Smoky and fly-blown glass of lunch-rooms,
...
I wonder
how it would be here with you,
where the wind
that has shaken off its dust in low valleys
...
Oh, God did cunningly, there at Babel -
Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul,
So that never again should men be able
To fashion one infinite, towering whole.
...
I love those spirits
That men stand off and point at,
Or shudder and hood up their souls -
Those ruined ones,
...
Wind, just arisen -
(Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss
In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars,
Or niche of cliff under the eagles?)
...
Where to-day would a dainty buyer
Imbibe your scented juice,
Pale ruin with a heart of fire;
Drain your succulence with her lips,
...
Cherry, cherry,
glowing on the hearth,
bright red cherry….
When you try to pick up cherry
...
Out of the night you burn, Manhattan,
In a vesture of gold -
Span of innumerable arcs,
Flaring and multiplying -
...
I would be a torch unto your hand,
A lamp upon your forehead, Labor,
In the wild darkness before the Dawn
...