OUT in the harbour, silence and the moon Beyond the City's roar; There screened from bluster of the sea The skies and waters strewn With stars in outlawry Conspire against the splendour of the shore. For sheer the golden crags and pinnacles Lift 'gainst the wave such fretted pageantry As ne'er Golconda's legend tells, Nor Aztec crater poured In yellow answer to the sun its lord. Here hive the golden bees In their sky-shouldering cells; Here 'gainst some promised dawn From out their phosphorescent seas The stars have laid their spawn. How like a pigmy's dreams Their El Dorado seems! With what poor madness drawn Old Nero put his torch to Rome, Knowing not spire or dome Liquid with gold like these That lift restoring nipples to the skies To nurse the Pleiades! And thou, O moon, that bearst thy silver urn So far from thine old temple hills of Greece, Upon what ancient paths of peace Would'st think thou to arise? By what memorial empurpled seas And columned Parthenon Wouldst thou—so strange—return? The moss is over Delphi's architrave That once thou lookedst serene upon; Thine Ephesus is but a grave; To naught have come thy Babylon, Thine Athens, Latium, and Byzance, Thy Salamis, thine Ascalon!— Long ages down Upon the lily spires of France Thine eye beheld the surge of Gothic shrines Like crowns of thorn on field and town; Forgotten were thy Delphian pyres, Thy sacrificial wines— Forgotten in the vehement travail Wherein man sought thee as a Holy Grail, The consecration of his heart's desires. Oh, come not here as on some slavish night At Carthage; shed no gleams Of witchcraft from Toledo's blight; Forego thine ancient domes and mossy towers By ghostly streams, Thy siren haunts upon the deeps;— Look down, renewed upon these newer bowers Where cloaked in gold Manhattan sleeps! Despite thy beauty and thy might Here still is fever unassuaged; Behind our towers and chimneys caged Are hearts that languish in the night. Be thou to them both monstrance and pure host, Their souls' refreshment; be the silver coin The homeless beggar folds unto his breast, Counting him richer than old Croesus' boast; Be thou the mask of Pierrot dressed, The starry carnival to join! Proclaim thou here A newer gospel ere the dawn comes o'er, A newer hope for hearts morose and sere, A newer song, a newer ointment pour In coronation on Manhattan's shore. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CONTRA MORTEM: THE WOMAN by HAYDEN CARRUTH MY FATHER'S FACE by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE ORANGE PICKER by DAVID IGNATOW |