Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NEW YORK, by DONALD ROBERT PERRY MARQUIS Poet's Biography First Line: She is hot to the sea that crouches beside Last Line: The beat of the heart of a world. Alternate Author Name(s): Marquis, Don Subject(s): New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple | ||||||||
She is hot to the sea that crouches beside, Human and hot to the cool stars peering down, My passionate city, my quivering town, And her dark blood, tide upon purple tide, With throbs as of thunder beats, With leaping rhythms and vast, is swirled Through the shaken lengths of her veinèd streets She pulses, the heart of a world! I have thrilled with her ecstasy, agony, woe Hath she a mood that I do not know? The winds of her music tumultuous have seized me and swayed me, Have lifted, have swung me around In their whirls as of cyclonic sound; Her passions have torn me and tossed me and brayed me; Drunken and tranced and dazzled with visions and gleams, I have spun with her dervish priests; I have searched to the souls of her haunted beasts And found love sleeping there; I have soared on the wings of her flashing dreams; I have sunk with her dull despair; I have sweat with her travails and cursed with her pains; I have swelled with her foolish pride; I have raged through a thick red mist at one with her branded Cains, With her broken Christs have died. O beautiful half-god city of visions and love! O hideous half-brute city of hate! O wholly human and baffled and passionate town! The throes of thy burgeoning, stress of thy fight, Thy bitter, blind struggle to gain for thy body a soul, I have known, I have felt, and been shaken there-by! Wakened and shaken and broken, For I hear in thy thunders terrific that throb through thy rapid veins The beat of the heart of a world. | 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 FOR I AM SAD by DONALD ROBERT PERRY MARQUIS |
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