Sara Teasdale — From The Woolworth Tower

    VIVID with love, eager for greater beauty     Out of the night we come     Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.     A metal door slides open,     And the lift receives us.     Swiftly, with sharp unswerving flight     The car shoots upward,     And the air, swirling and angry,     Howls like a hundred devils.     Past the maze of trim bronze doors,     Steadily we ascend.     I cling to you     Conscious of the chasm under us,     And a terrible whirring deafens my ears. The flight is ended.     We pass thru a door leading onto the ledge—     Wind, night and space     Oh terrible height     Why have we sought you?     Oh bitter wind with icy invisible wings     Why do you beat us?     Why would you bear us away?     We look thru the miles of air,     The cold blue miles between us and the city,     Over the edge of eternity we look     On all the lights,     A thousand times more numerous than the stars;     Oh lines and loops of light in unwound chains     That mark for miles and miles     The vast black mazy cobweb of the streets;      Near us clusters and splashes of living gold     That change far off to bluish steel     Where the fragile lights on the Jersey shore     Tremble like drops of wind-stirred dew.     The strident noises of the city     Floating up to us     Are hallowed into whispers.     Ferries cross thru the darkness     Weaving a golden thread into the night,     Their whistles weird shadows of sound.     We feel the millions of humanity beneath us,—     The warm millions, moving under the roofs,     Consumed by their own desires;     Preparing food,     Sobbing alone in a garret,     With burning eyes bending over a needle,     Aimlessly reading the evening paper,     Dancing in the naked light of the café,     Laying out the dead,     Bringing a child to birth—     The sorrow, the torpor, the bitterness, the frail joy     Come up to us     Like a cold fog wrapping us round.     Oh in a hundred years     Not one of these blood-warm bodies     But will be worthless as clay.     The anguish, the torpor, the toil     Will have passed to other millions     Consumed by the same desires.     Ages will come and go,     Darkness will blot the lights     And the tower will be laid on the earth.     The sea will remain     Black and unchanging,     The stars will look down     Brilliant and unconcerned.     Beloved,     Tho' sorrow, futility, defeat     Surround us,     They cannot bear us down.     Here on the abyss of eternity     Love has crowned us     For a moment     Victors.