Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Hymn of the City
By William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)N
Alone may man commune with heaven, or see
Only in savage wood
And sunny vale, the present Deity;
Or only hear his voice
Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice.
Thy steps, Almighty!—here, amidst the crowd,
Through the great city rolled,
With everlasting murmur deep and loud,—
Choking the ways that wind
’Mongst the proud piles, the work of human kind.
From the round heaven, and on their dwellings lies,
And lights their inner homes;
For them thou fill’st with air the unbounded skies,
And givest them the stores
Of ocean, and the harvests of its shores.
Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along;
And this eternal sound,—
Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng,—
Like the resounding sea,
Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of thee.
Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine,
Hushing its billowy breast,—
The quiet of that moment too is thine;
It breathes of Him who keeps
The vast and helpless city while it sleeps.