Madison Cawein

ENORMOUSLY it lifts

Its towers against the splendour of the west;

Like some wild dream that drifts

Before the mind, and at the will’s behest,—

Enchantment-based, gigantic steel and stone,—

Is given permanence;

A concrete fact,

Complete, alone,

Glorious, immense,

Such as no nation here on earth has known:

Epitomizing all

That is American, that stands for youth,

And strength and truth;

That’s individual,

And beautiful and free,—

Resistless strength and tireless energy.

Even as a cataract,

Its superb fact

Suggests vast forces Nature builds with—Joy,

And Power and Thought,

She to her aid has brought

For eons past, will bring for eons yet to be,

Shaping the world to her desire: the three

Her counsellors constantly,

Her architects, through whom her dreams come true,—

Her workmen, bringing forth,

With toil that shall not cease,

Mountains and plains and seas,

That make the Earth the glory that it is:

And, one with these,

Such works of man as this,

This building, towering into the blue,

A beacon, round which like an ocean wide,

Circles and flows the restless human tide.