Above unsightly city roofs Where smoky serpents trail the sky, Broods Commerce; in her factories A million clacking shuttles fly; Where, choked with lint, in sickly air The little children droop and die. II The rattling clash of jarring wheels Against the windows echoing beats; And when the pallid gas-jets flare Where sombre night with twilight meets, Like flotsam on the stream of Fate The toiler’s myriads crowd the streets. III With hiving tumult to and fro Trade’s devotees, a hurrying mass, Through the long corridor of years In due procession rise and pass; To earn their wage, to seek their goal And melt, like dew-drops on the grass. IV And here, within the age of Gain Our forest-masted harbors shine With shimmering fleets; and we go on To climes afar of palm and vine, And in the warp of Traffic weave A sinister and base design, V Of mild and hapless Islanders Who fall before our soldiers’ aim; Of broken faith—of sophistries— Of sin, of blood-shed, and of shame; Oh! Commerce, Commerce, who shall tell The crimes committed in thy name. VI Turn, turn my Fancy, inland borne Where Nature’s solace shall not fail To ease the heart; view skyey seas Where cloud armadas, sail on sail, Manned by the winds go warping down Below the far horizon’s trail. VII And as the budding willows blow When March comes whirling past the lanes, With bird-note wild, and fifing winds And undertone of sibilant rains, On slopes where Winter’s garment melts Blue as the sea are violet stains. VIII Where cattle seek the shaded pools And silence folds the sun-burned lands, Her auburn tresses backward flung Mid-Summer, like to Ceres stands, Beside the fields of waving grain With harvest-apples in her hands. IX And stealthily through winnowing dusk I see the curling smoke ascend, Where lie the farms; and evermore Where hope, and health, and manhood blend; While stubble shorn and pastures bare Proclaim the waning season’s end. X And as beyond the naked hills The chill November sunset dies, And cloudward now a phalanx swims Where guttural honking fills the skies, Black-sculptured on approaching night And southward bound, the wild-goose flies. *NINE* I Behold the kindred human types Tribe, Sept, and class, Race, Caste, and Clan; Red, Black and Yellow; White and Brown; Processions of Primordial Man That wax apace, and stream across In one unending caravan. II The Fisher-People with their shells And dwellers of the Age of Stone; The Kirghiz of the Western Steppes The Greek, the Turk, the Mongol shown, The Goth, the Frank,—I see them pass Like flash-lights by a mirror thrown. III