Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/55

Rh The splendor streams

In lines and jets and scintillating gleams

From tower and spire and campanile bright,

And palaces of light.

How beautiful is this

Unmatched Cosmopolis!—

City of wealth and want,

Of pitiless extremes,

Selfish ambitions, pure aspiring dreams;

Whose miseries, remembered, daunt

The bravest spirit hope hath cheered—

This city loved and hated, honored, feared:

This Titan City, bold to dare:

This wounded Might

That, dreading darkness, covers up its care

And hides its gaping hurt 'neath veils of light!

Oh, I have looked on Venice when the moon

Silvered each dark lagoon,

And have in dreams beheld her

Clothed in resplendent pride,

The Adriatic's bride!

Naples I, too, have seen—

An even lovelier Queen—