Around me rose the city
Stirring at the first glimpse of day;
The great city, that gives bread, that labours,
Rose, as the sun gleamed forth, to its gigantic toil.

There was a crying of clear voices, unknown voices,
Beating waves of sound;
A throwing wide of doors and windows,
A whistling of trains, a whirling of wheels.

There was a hastening gaily, furiously,
Of a thousand human forces
Towards the work that gives health and food,
That unfurls a thousand flags to the wind.

All things glittered, palpitated, laughed
In the glory of the morning;
All things seemed to open wings;
Hope and joy gleamed on every visage.

Then I observed him. Powerful was he: his front—
Pale with thought—
Proudly and nobly bore he
On the bronzed neck, free-moving.

Bull neck—breast of the savage—
Bold glance and word;
In his veins the surge of life,
Billows of love and of bravery.

Resounding the footfall! Like a victor
Advanced he in the light;
And my heart murmured:—Is he not a leader?
Amid the pandemonium

Of the workshop, proud in his workman’s blouse,
Does he not tame the monsters
To whom man meted claws and bills,
Soul of flame and thews of steel?

Wells there not within him a fount of vigour,
Leaping, overbearing,
That shall fill with fresh life this languishing age,
Sallow with vice and lack of blood?

Oh blessÈd, blessÈd to be beloved of him....
To wait for him each evening
Before the frugal board, with all the true
Sweet anxiousness of one who loves and waits.

BlessÈd to cull from him, as the white lily
Culls from the golden bee,
The kiss of one who knows grim strife and toil;
To be all his treasure, to bear a son to him:

And in this son, fair and blameless,
Informed with all his father’s worth,
To nurse a hope, a hope eternal,
To find the joys of a falling world:

And to dream, through him continued
In the centuries to come,
Of the race of the unbowed, of the pure,
Destined to dazzling days of light:

Of an unstained race of slaves redeemed
Who amid songs shall reap
Harvests of freedom born from the weeping,
From the blood, from the very hearts, of their forerunners.