Though starved throughout your every city,
Rotarian businessmen and boors,
We still defy you as we pity.
You cannot kill the troubadours.

You blacken heaven with smokestack pencil
And blemish nature with billboard art.
You force upon man's mind your stencil,
But cannot quell the singing heart.

Oh, lords of factory and steeple,
You scare the foolish, grind the poor,
Conspire against the weary people.
You cannot daunt a troubadour.

Our song shall drown your guns and whistles,
Inspire the meek to claim their rights.

These spartan steers I much admire
Who never knew a stall or byre,
But, cast beneath a mesa's brow,
Sucked the milk of a fighting cow.
Although they bear an owner's brand
Wild, they range a wilder land.
With buzzards for only umpire
They have fought battles, horned with fire.
Their scattered foraging they know
Deep-buried in the blinding snow,
And water-holes are ringed around
By their trails in the scarlet ground.
Even their skulls horned and white
Are like a new moon shining bright
Delicate and thin with age

Stoking, stoking, stoking—
Days of dusty night;
Stoking, stoking, stoking—
Lit with red hell's light.

Pouring, pouring, pouring—
Ladling wealth untold;
Pouring, pouring, pouring—
Metal gods to mold.

Molding, molding, molding—
Lives of men inwrought;
Molding, molding, molding—
Men with steel are bought.

Life is a feast, they say:
Yet millions of people are born hungry and die hungry—
And, dying, wonder why they ever had to live.

Life is a feast, they say:
Yet millions of women pass their years
Without seeing a country road or a field of clover.

Life is a feast, they say:
Yet millions of children, having glutted their eyes before a bright-colored Christmas window,
Go home, heart-hungry, to a dark corner of a black wall, by Tenement Alley.
Life is a feast, they say.

How did it come to his mind? the fleshless and horrible dream—
Grewsome, cruel, and weird—making the murk more grim;
Standing stark-naked in bone, which the starlight sets all a-gleam—
Shooting his shot at the town, the little town silent and dim?

Said we not, each to the other, “Death is an Angel of Light!”
While our tears as they rolled gave the lie to our lips?
Here 's one paints us the thing awful, authentic, aright—
Tells the Truth straight out, from the skull to the spiked toe-tips!

So, if you opened this page an idle moment to soothe,

Like wine, your kisses touch my lips,
Like wine, the blood thrills through my veins;
The honey that the gold bee sips,
The purple draught that foams and stains
Are in your tender, sweet caress;
My heart is yours, I could give less—

I could give less, but all my life
Lies at your feet, to take or no.
I crave your clasp that shields from strife,
The kiss you gave me, loving so.
I love your breath upon my hair,
Myself I love—you think me fair.

O Adam, where are you?
Adam, where are you?
Adam, where are you?
O what a trying time!

Lord, I am in the garden.
Adam, you ate that apple.
Lord, Eve she gave it to me.
Adam, it was forbidden.
Lord said, walk out de garden.

When with her clouds the early dawn illumes
Our doubtful streets, wistful they grow and mild;
As if a sleeping soul grew happy and smiled,
The whole dark city radiantly blooms.
Pale spires lift their hands above the glooms
Like a resurrection, delicately wild,
And flushed with slumber like a little child,
Under a mist, shines forth the innocent Tombs.
Thus have I seen it from a casement high.
As unsubstantial as a dream it grows.
Is this Manhattan, virginal and shy,
That in a cloud so rapturously glows?

I love the fields, the woods, the streams,
The wild flowers fresh and sweet,
And yet I love no less than these,
The crowded city street;
For haunts of man, where'er they be,
Awake my deepest sympathy.

I see within the city street,
Life's most extreme estates,
The gorgeous domes of palaces,
The prison's doleful gates:
The hearths by household virtues blest,
The dens that are the serpent's nest.

I see the rich man, proudly fed
And richly clothed, pass by;
I see the shivering, homeless wretch,
With hunger in his eye;

Sister Dolly light the lamp, and the lamp light the road,
And I wish I been there for to yedde Jordan roll.

O the city light the lamp, the white man he will sold,
And I wish I been there, etc.

O the white marble stone, and the white marble stone.

O my sister light de lamp, and de lamp light de road;
I wish I been dere for to hearde Jordan roll.