The singers sing not the sweet songs to-day, Their eyes are dull and their hearts are old; The butterfly's pastel wing is grey, The altars are dumb and the lyrics are cold. Then whither away has Poesy fled? She roams not the tinted depths of space, The Pleiad crown she has cast from her head: Where shall we, the desolate, find her place? Go down to the room of the panting steam; She looks in the face of the fluent steel, And sweeter to her than Sappho's dream Are the purring band and the humming wheel. 'Tis the song of throttles and rivets and bonds, The song of an age of inventive might: The song of the man who sings with his hands The poem God whispered to him in the night. She has caught the flash from the era's brain, She smiles at the soot on her folded wings; She has struck the key to the world's refrain, "Lo, Matter is crowned and sits with the kings!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE INCORRIGIBLE DIRIGIBLE by HAYDEN CARRUTH A DREAM OF JULIUS CAESAR by ROBERT FROST JAWEH AND ALLAH BATTLE by ALLEN GINSBERG LOVE'S TENDRILS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON OFFERING by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON MA LADY'S LIPS AM LIKE DE HONEY (NEGRO LOVE SONG) by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON |