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New York Skyline
The stony spears of this army
go black into the sky;
the clouds are split by spear-heads
and the thin horizon is broken. . . .
This phalanx is stone and iron
moving with thunder against the sun.
A murmur of voices floats on the water;
the ships swing on the tide
and with a long slow sigh
the sea takes them on its breast.
The wind goes by heavy with rain
sweeping to the city. . ..
The tread of the phalanx resounds from afar-
the water is not shaken.
There are enemies for this army:
there is a dry-rot at its core;
there is a worm that splits stone
and gnaws it to dust,
rusting steel also.
And the outposts shudder
looking on the sky.
They hear from afar
the low sigh of the sea
Israel fames Kapstein
nuzzling the wharves,
while the sky broods,
never stirring with clouds.
For a little time only
a murmur of voices
floats over the water
and dies on the wind... .
Phoenicia and Argos whisper together
over the wide unshaken water,
their voices mingling
with the sounding sea-wrack.
This army treads a stony road
laid above the brown wet earth.
The spears are planted in the earth
where curls the worm.
Stone and iron crumble
and the wharves crack,
the faces of men wrinkle,
their limbs are bent. . . .
The sky broods
over still water,
and the armies are sunken
in the wet brown earth... .
Their spears cast no shadow.
Israel Fames Kapstein