Jedediah Huntington

WITH much the soul that fetters and degrades,

In thee, Manhatta! yet are some things seen,

That lift to joy and love thy citizen.

Refreshing as a dream of forest glades,

Not seldom meets his eye whom business jades,

In the brick desert an oasis green.

St. Luke’s low tower has yet its rural screen;

St. John’s its thick and rose-besprinkled shades;

And many spots and sights as fair there be.

But one fair sight is prized above the rest;

Beheld, when, loitering home at sun-down, we

Have frequent glimpses of the crimson west,

Tinging the woody shores and glittering breast

Of kingly Hudson passing to the sea.

With step that times the pulse’s languid beats,

Forth to the Battery at the cool of day,

Forth to the wave-washed Battery we stray,

Glad to exchange the city’s central heats,

And scorching pavements of unshaded streets,

For long and gravelled walks, where children play,

And the pure breeze, fresh-blowing from the bay,

Rifles the perfumed bosom of its sweets.

Thence, “loitering home at sun-down,” we perceive,

Bright streaming up each vistaed street we pass,

A flush, from western skies by purple eve

Suffused, and from the river smooth as glass,

’Gainst which, and ’gainst the sky, a tangled mass

Of masts and spars their blackened lines relieve.