Classic Poem

O let some young Timotheus sweep his lyre
Hymning New York. Lo! Every tower and spire
Puts on immortal fire.
This city, which ye scorn
For her rude sprawling limbs, her strength unshorn—
Hands blunt from grasping, Titan-like, at Heaven,
Is a world-wonder, vaulting all the Seven!
Europe? Here's all of Europe in one place;
Beauty unconscious, yes, and even grace.
Rome? Here all that Rome was, and is not;
Here Babylon—and Babylon's forgot.
Golden Byzantium, drunk with pride and sin,
Carthage, that flickered out where we begin …
London? A swill of mud in Shakespear's time;
Ten Troys lie tombed in centuries of grime!
Who'd not have lived in Athens at her prime,
Or helped to raise the mighty walls of Rome?
See, blind men! Walls rise all about you here at home!
Who would not near once more
That oceanic roar
“Ave! Ave Imperator!”
With which an army its Augustus greets?
Hark! There's an army roaring in the streets!
This spawning filth, these monuments uncouth,
Are but her wild, ungovernable youth.
But the skyscrapers, dwarfing earthly things—
Ah, that is how she sings!
Wake to the vision shining in the sun;
Earth's ancient, conquering races rolled in one,
A world beginning—and yet nothing done!