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 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? 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. 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. 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!— 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE TUFT OF KELP by HERMAN MELVILLE TICHBORNE'S ELEGY, WRITTEN IN THE TOWER BEFORE HIS EXECUTION by CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE TO THE BELGIANS by LAURENCE BINYON ANOTHER JOURNEY FROM BETHUNE TO CUINCHY by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR DAUGHTER IN LAW by ANNE BRADSTREET MASQUE AT THE MARRIAGE OF THE LORD HAYES: FLORA SPEAKS by THOMAS CAMPION OBSERVATIONS IN THE ART OF ENGLISH POESY: 11. TROCHAIC VERSE: THE SEVENTH EPIGRAM by THOMAS CAMPION |