Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A RHYME ABOUT AN ELECTRICAL ADVERTISING SIGN, by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A RHYME ABOUT AN ELECTRICAL ADVERTISING SIGN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I look on the specious electrical light
Last Line: That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.
Alternate Author Name(s): Lindsay, Vachel
Subject(s): Advertising; Broadway, New York City; Signs & Signboards


I look on the specious electrical light
Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white,
Wickedly red or malignantly green
Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen.
Showing, while millions of souls hurry on,
The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn,
By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl,
Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl,
By maggoty motions in sickening line
Proclaiming a hat or a soup or a wine,
While there far above the steep cliffs of the street
The stars sing a message elusive and sweet.

Now man cannot rest in his pleasure and toil
His clumsy contraptions of coil upon coil
Till the thing he invents, in its use and its range,
Leads on to the marvellous CHANGE BEYOND CHANGE.
Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies,
As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise,
And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night,
Till we join with the planets who choir their delight.
The signs in the streets and the signs in the skies
Shall make a new Zodiac, guiding the wise,
And Broadway make one with that marvellous stair
That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.





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