I look on the specious electrical light <br />Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white, <br />Wickedly red or malignantly green <br />Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen. <br />Showing, while millions of souls hurry on, <br />The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn, <br />By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl, <br />Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl, <br />By maggotry motions in sickening line <br />Proclaiming a hat or a soup or a wine, <br />While there far above the steep cliffs of the street <br /> <br />The stars sing a message elusive and sweet. <br />Now man cannot rest in his pleasure and toil <br />His clumsy contraptions of coil upon coil <br />Till the thing he invents, in its use and its range, <br />Leads on to the marvelous CHANGE BEYOND CHANGE <br />Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies, <br />As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise. <br />And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night, <br />Till we join with the planets who choir their delight. <br />The signs in the street and the signs in the skies <br />Shall make me a Zodiac, guiding and wise, <br />And Broadway make one with that marvelous stair <br />That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.<br /><br />Vachel Lindsay<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-rhyme-about-an-electrical-advertising-sign/
