Manhattan
Out of the night you burn, Manhattan,
In a vesture of gold —
Span of innumerable arcs,
Flaring and multiplying —
Gold at the uttermost circles fading
Into the tenderest hint of jade,
Or fusing in tremulous twilight blues,
Robing the far-flung offices,
Scintillant-storied, forking flame,
Or soaring to luminous amethyst
Over the steeples aureoled —
Diaphanous gold,
Veiling the Woolworth, argently
Rising slender and stark
Mellifluous-shrill as a vender's cry,
And towers squatting graven and cold
On the velvet bales of the dark,
And the Singer's appraising
Indolent idol's eye,
And night like a purple cloth unrolled —
Nebulous gold
Throwing an ephemeral glory about life's vanishing points,
Wherein you burn . . .
You of unknown voltage
Whirling on your axis . . .
Scrawling vermillion signatures
Over the night's velvet hoarding . . .
Insolent, towering spherical
To apices ever shifting.
~~
Lola Ridge (1873-1941)
from The Ghetto, and other poems, 1918
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Lola Ridge biography
