Vachel Lindsay

I LOOK on the specious electrical light

Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white,

Wickedly red or malignantly green

Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen.

Showing, while millions of souls hurry on,

The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn,

By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl,

Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl,

By maggoty motions in sickening line

Proclaiming a hat or a soup or a wine,

While there far above the steep cliffs of the street

The stars sing a message elusive and sweet.

Now man cannot rest in his pleasure and toil

His clumsy contraptions of coil upon coil

Till the thing he invents, in its use and its range,

Leads on to the marvellous CHANGE BEYOND CHANGE.

Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies,

As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise,

And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night,

Till we join with the planets who choir their delight.

The signs in the streets and the signs in the skies

Shall make a new Zodiac, guiding the wise,

And Broadway make one with that marvellous stair

That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.