The New York Skyscraper

The Woolworth Building
ENORMOUSLY it lifts
Its tower against the splendor of the west;
Like some wild dream that drifts
Before the mind, and at the will's behest,—
Enchantment-based, gigantic steel and stone,—
Is given permanence;
A concrete fact,
Complete, alone,
Glorious, immense,
Such as no nation here on Earth has known:
Epitomizing all
That is American, that stands for youth,
And strength and truth;
That's individual,
And beautiful and free,—
Resistless srength and tireless energy.
Even as a cataract,
Its superb fact
Suggests vast forces Nature builds with — Joy,
And Power and Thought,
She to her aid has brought
For eons past, will bring for eons yet to be,
Shaping the world to her desire: the three
Her counsellors constantly,
Her architects, through whom her dreams come true, —
Her workmen, bringing forth,
With toil that shall not cease,
Mountains and plains and seas,
That make the Earth
The glory that it is:
And, one with these,
Such works of man as this,
This building, towering into the blue,
A beacon, round which like an ocean wide,
Circles and flows the restless human tide.