Manhattan

Oh, marble-spired Manhattan, I look into your thousand eyes at dusk,
And your thousand eyes look back at me, kindled with lights over the harbor.

You hold the sky set like blue wings on your mountain peaks of splendor,
And you will hold the sky until the world ends and the dream is gone, Oh Manhattan.

Toss your towers into the stars, Great Gray City!
Lift your peaks until they push over the clouds;
Live and throb and beat your mighty heart against the solid sun;
You are eternal, Great White City!

Walk over your bridges of the centuries, Oh Manhattan, glorious Manhattan;
Tread upon the æons of your remarkable destiny of the future,
Imperishable, perpetual, everlasting Manhattan!

I look into your thousand eyes, and your thousand eyes look into my eyes.
I look into your face, and your face is full of the glory of God.
I look into your soul, and your soul is full of the wonder of the world;
Oh nourishing, immortal, beautiful Manhattan.

Nothing is so eternalas a city, and you are the eternal city of eternal cities,
Pavemented, walled, carred, lighted, jeweled, crowded city of beauty,
God's own city of the western world.

Your ferry boats walk the salt wave crowded;
Your tugs are the organs of the harbor singing their deep and sonorous hymns of commerce;
Your walls, New York, hold up heaven, parapets of beauty stabbing into the stars!
Pillars of the universe.

Oh music in stone, poetry in sculpture, song in architectual marble, prayer in granite, an ecstasy in steel and iron and gold, singing city of the great heart, singing city,
You are Manhattan!

Edwin Curran