| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Fifth Avenue Sky-scrapers | | By Alice D. Lippman |
| | | WE are the phantoms of mortar and brick | |
| Slapped against patches of sky, | |
| Stretching our taut, slender bodies | |
| Into the clouds. | |
| |
| Under us endless masses of people, endlessly walking | 5 |
| Somewhere, nowhere; | |
| Endlessly swallowed by us | |
| Who house them, feed them, clothe them, | |
| Followed by masses of others, endlessly walking. | |
| |
| We do not walk. | 10 |
| We have mounted the pace of men’s minds that have made us— | |
| Made us the thing that we are, | |
| The sphinx of a world that is new, yet blind as the old. | |
| |
| They do not see us—the sphinx, | |
| The soul of themselves. | 15 |
| |
| For they are aimlessly walking— | |
| Anywhere, nowhere— | |
| Walking to deaden the hour, | |
| Walking toward life, | |
| Walking toward death, | 20 |
| |
| Somewhere…. | | | | |
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