Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NEW YORK DAYS, by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD Poet's Biography First Line: Tis something for a poet's lip Last Line: By brotherhood of song and pain. Subject(s): Bridges; Brooklyn Bridge; New York City - Buildings; Skyscrapers | ||||||||
'Tis something for a poet's lip Our memorable comradeship. The Empire City of the isle Threw down on us her awful smile. "My fate be on you," said the Voice; "Aspire, and if you can, rejoice ..." We entered, through a portico, By ample steps that flanged below, A dome supreme and luminous, But housing statues not for us; And sullen made o'er marble tile Dumb exit through the brazen stile: The college of the liberal arts Was not the college of our hearts We had some other ends to win ... We saw the iron ships come in From Brooklyn Bridge, the civic towers That loomed too large for earth of ours, The pits between, the smoky pall, The stony shadows vertical Aslant up many a windowed wall ... I've read that in the Middle Age, When Dante made his pilgrimage, Each Tuscan baron, bound to feud, Who housed in city walls imbued With blood of Ghibelline and Guelf, Built a high watch-tower for himself, And travellers over Alps looked down On many a grim imperial town That rose in rugged silhouette Of parapet by parapet Without a spire, a tree, a home 'Twas thus with Pisa, Florence, Rome. But here it seemed some giant broods Had raised the bulwarks of their feuds And mastered Titan altitudes! We watched on slopes of Morningside Broad Hudson wrestling with the tide, Or from the granite balustrades The sunset o'er the Palisades, Where glowed the Cosmos in the West, Like lightning flashes made to rest And lie an hour manifest ... We passed in moonlight down the malls Beneath the dusky citadels; We wound from curve to curve in cars On lofty girders under stars; We drank in music-halls, aflame With lantern green and scarlet dame; And held, where passion most was rife, Our fevered talk of human life ... And through the snow, the wind, the gloom, We journeyed to each other's room, In those lamp-lit aerial crypts, Piled with our books and manuscripts So far above the flash and roar We seemed encaved forevermore Upon some cliff or mountain shore; We read in bardic ecstasies Catullus or Simonides, Or chanted verses of our own In slow sonorous monotone, That sometimes clove so true and free, To us 'twas immortality; We shared the agony of tears Pierced by the ignominious years, And times there were when we were three, But late it grows and where is he? And I long since was inland driven To climb the hills of God as given, While you again are by those seas With more of vision, power, peace. We overcame. But 'twas the press Of no ignoble restlessness Outside the law yet not outside, By austere issues justified, And justified, were all else vain, By brotherhood of song and pain. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SKYSCRAPERS OF THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT DANCE WITH GASMAN by MARGE PIERCY FROM THE WOOLWORTH TOWER by SARA TEASDALE THE METROPOLITAN TOWER by SARA TEASDALE SKYSCRAPERS by RACHEL (LYMAN) FIELD PRAYERS OF STEEL by CARL SANDBURG MONODY ON THE ASTOR HOUSE by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS VILLANELLE OF CITY AND COUNTRY by ZOE AKINS TWO SONNETS FROM NEW YORK: TOWERS by ADELAIDE NICHOLS BAKER TOM MOONEY by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD TWO LIVES: CONCLUSION. INDIAN SUMMER by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD |
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