Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NEW YORK; A NOCTURNE, by FLORENCE EARLE COATES First Line: Down-gazing, I behold Last Line: Let there be light! Subject(s): New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple | ||||||||
Down-gazing, I behold, Miraculous by night, A city all of gold. Here, there, and everywhere, In myriad fashion fair, A mystery untold Of Light! Not royal Babylon, Nor Tyre, nor Rome the great In the all-powerful state Her wisdom and her armed legions won Was so illuminate As the strange world which, awed, I look upon. With it compared, the ancient glories fail, And, in the glow it doth irradiate, The planets of the firmament grow pale! Night, birth-fellow to Chaos, never wore A robe so gemmed before. The splendour streams In lines and jets and scintillating gleams From tower and spire and campanile bright, And palaces of light. How beautiful is this Unmatched Cosmopolis! City of wealth and want, Of pitiless extremes, Selfish ambitions, pure aspiring dreams; Whose miseries, remembered, daunt The bravest spirit hope hath cheered This city loved and hated, honoured, feared: This Titan City, bold to dare: This wounded Might That, dreading darkness, still conceals its care And hides its gaping hurt 'neath veils of light! Oh, I have looked on Venice when the moon Silvered each dark lagoon, And have in dreams beheld her Clothed in resplendent pride, The Adriatic's bride! Naples I, too, have seen An even lovelier Queen And thought that nothing in the world excelled her Nay marvelled, as at close of day I gazed across her opalescent bay And saw Vesuvius burn on high Against the soft Italian sky, That anything on earth could wear A charm so past compare! Yet, O Manhattan! Glowing now Against the sombre night, Thine opulence and squalor hid from sight, Never was aught more beautiful than thou Dost in thy calm appear So glorified and so transfigured here Since the Eternal, to creation stirred, Breathed from His awful lips the mystic word: Let there be Light! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...READY FOR THE CANNERY by BERTON BRALEY TRANTER IN AMERICA by AUGUST KLEINZAHLER MEETING YOU AT THE PIERS by KENNETH KOCH FEBRUARY EVENING IN NEW YORK by DENISE LEVERTOV ON 52ND STREET by PHILIP LEVINE THREE POEMS FOR NEW YORK by JOSEPHINE MILES NEW YORK SUBWAY by HILDA MORLEY A NARROW WINDOW by FLORENCE EARLE COATES |
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