| Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917. | | | | Of City Flowers | | By Shaemus O’Sheel |
| | On reading certain poems in praise of New York
MY city! How the younger poets mock | |
| With present praise thine unrevealèd soul! | |
| Surely with scorn thou hear’st their raptures roll, | |
| Nor will to their small minds thy mind unlock. | |
| Not with such clamoring casuists can I flock; | 5 |
| Black witch who ere my birth my future stole, | |
| With fury that I care not to control | |
| I hate thee and the children of thy stock! | |
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| I hate thee and I cry it to the world! | |
| And in return thy uncouth savage love, | 10 |
| O lewd amorphous mystery, I feel! | |
| For when at last thy loftiest towers are hurled | |
| Hell-ward, of all who mourn thy ruins above, | |
| My grief alone, thou knowest, will be real. | | | | |
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