Crowds! Crowds! Crowds!

Suddenly here as if come from the clouds

That faded away as they came;

Mad acres of people aflame

With thirst for a morsel of land;

Wild hunters of fortune, whose game

Is ever escaping the hand;

Vast, countless, uncountable throngs

With restless, unrestable feet,

That hurry the ways, full of agonized wrongs,

For the conquest of happiness sweet;

Wild seas of ambition whose waves of desire

On their obstacles mighty continually beat,

Where neither the shore nor the ocean is fixed;

Like thunderous songs of a choir,

Whose murmurs in music repeat;

And confusion and chaos are terribly mingled and mixed.

Dust! Dust! Dust!

Borne in the arms of the gathering gust,

And whirled on the wings of the wind,

The eyes feel the blight of the blind,

And horror comes into the heart;

For nature is far more unkind

Than the thousands that struggle apart.

Dark, wild, inescapable dust,

In fiercest, untamable clouds,

That men into misery helplessly thrust,

And bury in agony-shrouds;

A simoom of sorrow whose pestilent breath

To the strong and the weak, to the young and the old,

Brings despair that is reckless of possible gain,

And the awfullest anguish of death;

Till the soul in its rage uncontrolled,

Droops low in the horrible sickness and sorrow of pain.

But out from the clouds,

Out from the agonized dust that enshrouds;

True kings shall arise who shall reign

In homes on the populous plain!

Great cities shall gather and grow

In glories that never shall wane,

Far over the valleys below.

With merry yet measureless might

They conquer the waste with the gladness that brings

To the desert the newest delight.

The barren shall bloom as the rose, and the land

That is sleeping, a wilderness wasted and wild,

And dreaming to welcome its master's command,

Shall leap at the touch of his hand,

His voice shall obey as a child!

Sing me a song, O, Wind,

Of musical cadence sweet,

Which in the wood around

Shall often and oft repeat;

Soft as an angel's song

That never can give annoy,

Which in the balmy notes

Shall tell me its tales of joy.

Sing me a song, O, Wind,

Of countries beyond the sea,

Which in thy wand'rings oft

Thou pass with a footstep free;

Lands that are ever green

'Neath blaze of the tropic spells,

Bright with their blessed suns,

Where summer forever dwells.

Sing me a song, O, Wind,

Of groves with a verdure fair,

Waving their boughs of green

O'er solitudes grand and rare;

Groves with a stillness sweet,

With cheering and cooling shades,

Where from its cares the race

May rest in the leafy glades.

Sing me a song, O, Wind,

Of birds with a plumage gay,

That with their carols sweet

Give praise to the God of day;

Music of sad refrain,

Though fond in its tender chime,

Thou in thy travels wide

Hast heard in a fairy clime.

Sing me a song, O, Wind,

Of crystalline brooks at play,

Which with the murmurs low

Make sweetest of sounds all day;

Winding through meadows wide,

And blossoming fields between,

Fringed with the willows tall

On emerald banks of green.

Sing me a song, O, Wind,

Of flowers that are fond and fair,

Filling the fields of earth

With beauty and fragrance rare;

Wafting an incense pure

On every breeze that blows,

Drawn from the lily's heart

And soul of the royal rose.

Sing me a song, O, Wind,

Of man in his brightest homes;

Tell if he there meet joy,

Wherever his longing roams;

Tell if there's e'er a place

Where, all his ambition