| |
| O BEAUTIFUL, long, loved Avenue! | |
| So faithless to truth, and yet so true! | |
| The camp in battle with the shouts in air, | |
| The neighing of steeds and the trumpet’s blare! | |
| Thou iron-faced sphynx; thy stedfast eyes | 5 |
| Encompass all seas. Thy hands likewise | |
| Lay hold on the peaks. The land and the sea | |
| Make tribute alike, and the mystery | |
| Of time it is thine—Say, what art thou | |
| But the scroll of the Past rolled into the Now? | 10 |
| |
| O throbbing and pulsing proud Avenue! | |
| Thou generous robber! Thou more than Tyre! | |
| Thou mistress of Pirates! Thou heart of fire! | |
| Thou heart of the world’s heart, pulsing to | |
| The bald, white poles. So old; so new. | 15 |
| So nude, get garmented past desire. | |
| Thou tall splendid woman, I bend to thee; | |
| I love thy majesty, mystery; | |
| Thy touches of sanctity, touches of taint, | |
| So grand as a sinner, so good as a saint. | 20 |
| |
| Thou heaven of lights! I stood at night | |
| Far down by a spire where the stars shot through | |
| Where commerce throbs strong as a burly sea swell, | |
| And searched the North Star, O Avenue! | |
| If the road up to God were thy long lane of light!— | 25 |
| I lifted my face, looking upward and far | |
| By the path of the Bear, underneath the North Star | |
| Beyond the gaslights where the falling stars spin, | |
| And lo! no man can tell, guess he ever so well, | |
| Where thy gaslights leave off or the starlights begin. | 30 |
| |
