CITY of ships! <br /> (O the black ships! O the fierce ships! <br /> O the beautiful, sharp-bow'd steam-ships and sail-ships!) <br /> City of the world! (for all races are here; <br /> All the lands of the earth make contributions here;) <br /> City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides! <br /> City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and <br /> out, with eddies and foam! <br /> City of wharves and stores! city of tall façades of marble and iron! <br /> Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city! <br /> Spring up, O city! not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, <br /> warlike! 10 <br /> Fear not! submit to no models but your own, O city! <br /> Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you! <br /> I have rejected nothing you offer'd me--whom you adopted, I have <br /> adopted; <br /> Good or bad, I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn <br /> anything; <br /> I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more; <br /> In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine; <br /> War, red war, is my song through your streets, O city!<br /><br />Walt Whitman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/city-of-ships/
