Classic Poem

They tear them down—the little homes—
They cannot leave them long;
It is as if they robbed the world
Of every little song.

Turrets and towers leap in their place,
When frantic Commerce calls;
And underneath Trade's ruthless hand
Each little homestead falls.

Too soon we lose them—little friends—
Too soon their faces go;
Not Time, but man, has crushed them all,
And laid their beauty low.

Change, change unceasing is the City's cry—
Hew down the trees in every sheltered street,
Build broader avenues and higher towers,
Stretch out into the bright suburban ways,
And snatch the distant villages and towns
A monster centipede that swiftly stirs,
Manhattan, not content with her domain,
Reaches for far environs greedily.
She flings her bridges over waterways,
Magician-like, almost in one brief night,
And hungering for another tiny crumb,
She bores beneath the river a mighty arm,
Until she grasps a bit of countryside,
Seizing it as a spider does a fly.
Her ferryboats, like speeding envoys, keep
Patiently, tirelessly their changeless tracks,
And swing into their slips with punctual pride—
Those slips that are their hourly destiny.

When will she cease this terrible desire
For larger power and greater glory? When
Will she repent of her incessant greed,
And, utterly weary of the sense of gain,
Be quite content to say, “My tasks are done;
Now I will rest awhile, for I am tired.”

O, never, never will the City sing
The song of labor done; she prospers most
When toiling for the processes of Growth.
Her doom is to be greater, greater still,
Her destiny to lure the country in,
To be a portion of her blood and soul.
Her voice is like the ocean's—never hushed;
Her turbulence the waves'—it must go on;
She cannot root up now the seeds long sown,
But, driven hard by that same Fate she made,
She must press forward in the endless race.