Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

Brooklyn Bridge Towers

George Alfred Townsend

BROTHER! are you waiting

Faithfully for me?

Stand fast and at last

I’ll reach my hair to thee.

Though of vacant sight,

Blindly we are feeling

Tow’rd each other, till the light,

Through our sockets stealing

O’er the stream, in one beam

Shall meet, and see!

Brother! I am listening

To the words you say,

As they reach me, whistling

Across the windy bay.

Though my feet are cold,

And they long divide us,

Here I’ll hold till I am old;

Our echoes shall provide us

On bounding feet a pathway fleet,

Till we behold!

Like two gates asunder

Something swings between.

On our heads the thunder

Strikes. We stand serene!

Earliest on our brows,

Still the latest tarry

The rosy clouds; the birds in crowds

Sail round to see us marry.

We will win, though, my twin,

Waves intervene.

Hark, behind! the churches

Faintly lift their bells.

And far below come and go

The city’s hollow swells;

Frightened ferry fleets

Disappear in vapour,

And the camps of twinkling lamps

Struggle for a taper.

To them all, starry tall,

We are sentinels!

Aye! I cannot see them,

Yet I feel them there;

And clambering stars their silver bars

Wind o’er me like a stair.

Brother, does a pulse

Start not in thy shoulder,

For a mystic destiny,—

Something better, bolder,—

When the rainbow its skein

Twineth in air?

Yes! A host of spirits

In procession creep

O’er me silently,

From darkened deeps of sleep.

Far away I hear

Wheels imperious driven

Up the heights of the atmosphere,

By the image of Heaven!

His path we span, and, brother! Man

Is the charioteer!