Huge steel-ribbed monsters rise into the air Her Babylonian towers, while on high Like gilt-scaled serpents glide the swift trains by, Or, underfoot, creep to their secret lair. A thousand lights are jewels in her hair, The sea her girdle, and her crown the sky, Her life-blood throbs, the fevered pulses fly, Immense, defiant breathless she stands there And ever listens in the ceaseless din, Waiting for him, her lover who shall come, Whose singing lips shall boldly claim their own And render sonant what in her was dumb: The splendour and the madness and the sin, Her dreams in iron and her thoughts of stone. |