| Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917. | | | | The Woolworth Building | | By Madison Cawein |
| | | ENORMOUSLY it lifts | |
| Its towers against the splendour of the west; | |
| Like some wild dream that drifts | |
| Before the mind, and at the will’s behest,— | |
| Enchantment-based, gigantic steel and stone,— | 5 |
| Is given permanence; | |
| A concrete fact, | |
| Complete, alone, | |
| Glorious, immense, | |
| Such as no nation here on earth has known: | 10 |
| Epitomizing all | |
| That is American, that stands for youth, | |
| And strength and truth; | |
| That’s individual, | |
| And beautiful and free,— | 15 |
| Resistless strength and tireless energy. | |
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| Even as a cataract, | |
| Its superb fact | |
| Suggests vast forces Nature builds with—Joy, | |
| And Power and Thought, | 20 |
| 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,— | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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. | | | | |
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