This is the greatest thing in North America: <br />Europe is the greatest thing in North America! <br />High in the sky, dark in the heart, and always there <br />Among the natural powers of sunlight and of air, <br />Changing, second by second, shifting and changing the <br /> light, <br />Bring fresh rain to the stone of the library steps. <br /> <br />Under the famous names upon the pediment: <br /> Thales, Aristotle, <br />Cicero, Augustine, Scotus, Galileo, <br />Joseph, Odysseus, Hamlet, Columbus and Spinoza, <br />Anna Karenina, Alyosha Karamazov, Sherlock Holmes. <br /> <br />And the last three also live upon the silver screen <br />Three blocks away, in moonlight's artificial day, <br />A double bill in the darkened palace whirled, <br />And the veritable glittering light of the turning world's <br />Burning mind and blazing imagination, showing, day by <br /> day <br />And week after week the desires of the heart and mind <br />Of all the living souls yearning everywhere <br />From Canada to Panama, from Brooklyn to Paraguay, <br />From Cuba to Vancouver, every afternoon and every night.<br /><br />Delmore Schwartz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-greatest-thing-in-north-america/
