Magnificats of stone
  Over the white silence of the arcs,
  Burning in perpetual adoration.

THE FOG

  Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk—
  Snaring, illuding, concealing,
  Magically conjuring—
  Turning to fairy-coaches
  Beetle-backed limousines
  Scampering under the great Arch—
  Making a decoy of blue overalls
  And mystery of a scarlet shawl—
  Indolently—
  Knowing no impediment of its sure advance—
  Descends the fog.

FACES

  A late snow beats
  With cold white fists upon the tenements—
  Hurriedly drawing blinds and shutters,
  Like tall old slatterns
  Pulling aprons about their heads.

  Lights slanting out of Mott Street
  Gibber out,
  Or dribble through bar-room slits,
  Anonymous shapes
  Conniving behind shuttered panes
  Caper and disappear…
  Where the Bowery
  Is throbbing like a fistula
  Back of her ice-scabbed fronts.

  Livid faces
  Glimmer in furtive doorways,
  Or spill out of the black pockets of alleys,
  Smears of faces like muddied beads,
  Making a ghastly rosary
  The night mumbles over
  And the snow with its devilish and silken whisper…
  Patrolling arcs
  Blowing shrill blasts over the Bread Line
  Stalk them as they pass,
  Silent as though accouched of the darkness,
  And the wind noses among them,
       Like a skunk
  That roots about the heart…

  Colder:
  And the Elevated slams upon the silence
  Like a ponderous door.
  Then all is still again,
  Save for the wind fumbling over
  The emptily swaying faces—
  The wind rummaging
  Like an old Jew…

  Faces in glimmering rows…
  (No sign of the abject life—
  Not even a blasphemy…)
  But the spindle legs keep time
  To a limping rhythm,
  And the shadows twitch upon the snow
       Convulsively—
  As though death played
  With some ungainly dolls.

LABOR

DEBRIS

  I love those spirits
  That men stand off and point at,
  Or shudder and hood up their souls—
  Those ruined ones,
  Where Liberty has lodged an hour
  And passed like flame,
  Bursting asunder the too small house.

DEDICATION

  I would be a torch unto your hand,
  A lamp upon your forehead, Labor,
  In the wild darkness before the Dawn
  That I shall never see…

  We shall advance together, my Beloved,
  Awaiting the mighty ushering…
  Together we shall make the last grand charge
  And ride with gorgeous Death
  With all her spangles on
  And cymbals clashing…
  And you shall rush on exultant as I fall—
  Scattering a brief fire about your feet…

  Let it be so…
  Better—while life is quick
  And every pain immense and joy supreme,
  And all I have and am
  Flames upward to the dream…
  Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn,
  Burning out the wick.

THE SONG OF IRON

I

  Not yet hast Thou sounded
  Thy clangorous music,
  Whose strings are under the mountains…
  Not yet hast Thou spoken
  The blooded, implacable Word…

  But I hear in the Iron singing—
  In the triumphant roaring of the steam and pistons pounding—
  Thy barbaric exhortation…
  And the blood leaps in my arteries, unreproved,
  Answering Thy call…
  All my spirit is inundated with the tumultuous passion of Thy Voice,
  And sings exultant with the Iron,
  For now I know I too am of Thy Chosen…

  Oh fashioned in fire—
  Needing flame for Thy ultimate word—
  Behold me, a cupola
  Poured to Thy use!

  Heed not my tremulous body
  That faints in the grip of Thy gauntlet.
  Break it… and cast it aside…
  But make of my spirit
  That dares and endures
  Thy crucible…
  Pour through my soul
  Thy molten, world-whelming song.

  … Here at Thy uttermost gate
  Like a new Mary, I wait…

II

  Charge the blast furnace, workman…
  Open the valves—
  Drive the fires high…
  (Night is above the gates).

  How golden-hot the ore is
  From the cupola spurting,
  Tossing the flaming petals
  Over the silt and furnace ash—
  Blown leaves, devastating,
  Falling about the world…

  Out of the furnace mouth—
  Out of the giant mouth—
  The raging, turgid, mouth—
  Fall fiery blossoms
  Gold with the gold of buttercups
  In a field at sunset,
  Or huskier gold of dandelions,
  Warmed in sun-leavings,
  Or changing to the paler hue
  At the creamy hearts of primroses.

  Charge the converter, workman—
  Tired from the long night?
  But the earth shall suck up darkness—
  The earth that holds so much…
  And out of these molten flowers,
  Shall shape the heavy fruit…

  Then open the valves—
  Drive the fires high,
  Your blossoms nurturing.
  (Day is at the gates
  And a young wind…)

  Put by your rod, comrade,
  And look with me, shading your eyes…
  Do you not see—
  Through the lucent haze
  Out of the converter rising—
  In the spirals of fire
  Smiting and blinding,
  A shadowy shape
  White as a flame of sacrifice,
  Like a lily swaying?

III

  The ore leaping in the crucibles,
  The ore communicant,
  Sending faint thrills along the leads…
  Fire is running along the roots of the mountains…
  I feel the long recoil of earth
  As under a mighty quickening…
  (Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron…)
  All palpitant, I wait…

IV

  Here ye, Dictators—late Lords of the Iron,
  Shut in your council rooms, palsied, depowered—
  The blooded, implacable Word?
  Not whispered in cloture, one to the other,
  (Brother in fear of the fear of his brother…)
  But chanted and thundered
  On the brazen, articulate tongues of the Iron
  Babbling in flame…

  Sung to the rhythm of prisons dismantled,
  Manacles riven and ramparts defaced…
  (Hearts death-anointed yet hearing life calling…)
  Ankle chains bursting and gallows unbraced…

  Sung to the rhythm of arsenals burning…
  Clangor of iron smashing on iron,
  Turmoil of metal and dissonant baying
  Of mail-sided monsters shattered asunder…

  Hulks of black turbines all mangled and roaring,
  Battering egress through ramparted