| William Wilfred Campbell, comp. The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. 1913. | | | | Urbs Condita | | By W. Stewart Wallace |
| | | THE CITY like an exhalation rose, | |
| Stone upon stone, from misty morn till purple even-close … | |
| A-many many chimneys towering high belched forth their flaming smoke | |
| From fierce-flaught forges deep within the old earth’s hollow womb, | |
| Whereinto men thrust faces, blazing-bright, to stoke, | 5 |
| And then drew back in gloom: | |
| Forges whence came white and hissing iron gauds | |
| That, plunged in water, writhed and sizzled vapid steam; | |
| Whereon the loud-voiced hammers straightly beat their iron lauds, | |
| And sparks flew fast, and died the white-hot gleam … | 10 |
| In wide-roofed, barn-like buildings men trucked bales of lade | |
| With multitudinous echoing, bumped them down, and clattered back | |
| Incessantly. Briareus plied his trade. | |
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| Outside in airy, sunbright streets no lack | |
| Of stalwart stallions hauled their creaking loads, | 15 |
| Stressed harness, laboured bulging thews, struck fire from flinty roads. | |
| Men shouted, whips swirled out and cracked, on every labouring dray | |
| Rails jangled clangingly, or wood-beams bumped, or heavy sandstone lay … | |
| And high in air stone-masses swung out to their own place, | |
| And brown hands gripped and guided them as down they came apace; | 20 |
| Mortared up, and set four-square to all the winds that blew, | |
| And girded down by girders strong, and rivet, bolt, and screw, | |
| They proudly topped the steepy walls, and climbed the fiery sky, | |
| Till passionless they set their brows amid the stars on high. | | | | |
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