Classic Poem

Be proud New-York of your prize domes
And your docks & the size of your doors & your dancing
Elegant clean big girls & your
Niggers with narrow heels & the blue on their
Bad mouths & your bars & your automo-
biles in the struck steel light & your
Bright Jews & your sorrow-sweet singing
Tunes & your signs wincing out in the wet
Cool shine & the twinges of
Green against evening ...

When the towns go down there are stains of
Rust on the stone shores and illegible
Coins and a rhyme remembered of
swans, say,
Or birds or leaves or a horse or fabulous
Bull forms or a falling of gold upon
Softness.

Be proud City of Glass of your
Brass roofs & the bright peaks of your
Houses!
Town that stood to your knees in the
Sea water be proud, be proud,
Of your high gleam on the sea!

Do they think,
Town,
They must rhyme your name with the name of a
Talking beast that the place of your walls be remembered?