John Curtis Underwood. The Moraine. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. 1917. The Book of New York Verse

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

The Moraine

By John Curtis Underwood


LOOK down, love, from the Bridge’s height
And see the buildings piled below,
A heap of pebbles in the night
Where stars like fireflies come and go.

Here by the border of the sea	5
Where life has left its last moraine,
The soul of man eternally
Resigns its pleasure and its pain.

The glacier glides into the deep,
An endless river of the years,	10
From the far mountains where they sleep
Who first begot our hopes and fears.

Cave-man, Crusader, scientist,
They pass as pass the centuries;
And teach these stones to still persist	15
To tally time’s infinities.

What does it all mean? Æons dear
Have left Manhattan here to-day
That we might meet. Our home is here
To share with others while we may.	20