You are a hollow thing of steel, a cauldron, No monument of freedom. You’re lettered, it is true, With many luminous truths that came to be Through deeds of men who died for liberty. But inside you there is a seething compost Of public schools, the ballot, journalism, Laws, jurisprudence, dogma, gold the chief Ingredient all stirred into a brew Wherewith to feed yourself and keep yourself The thing you are! Not wholly slave, not really free, Desiring vaguely to be master moral, And yet too sicklied over by old truths, The ballot, fear, plebian spirit, lack of mind, To reach patrician levels-- Hermaphroditic giant, misty-eyed, Half blinded by ideals, half by greed! Can nothing but a war, The prospect of a slaughter or the prize Of foreign lands, shake off your lethargy, And make you seem as big in spirit as You are in body? Would you not love the general weal improved? Would you not love your towns made beautiful? Your halls and courts Reclaimed from dicers’ oaths? Your laws made just and tuned to god-like laws? Your weights and measures made invariable? Is there no tonic in such hopes as these To rouse you, giant? I think you are Delilah Tricked out as Liberty for a fancy ball, Spiritless, provincal, shabby, dull, Where no ways gentle, no natural mirth prevails. You’ve put your Samson’s eye out; he would see. You’ve chained him to the grinder, he would play, Be wise and human, free, courageous, fair, Of cleaner flesh and nobler spirit. Look He may pull down your bastard temple yet, And make you use pentelic marble for Rebuilding of the Parthenon you planned, And leave the misse stone thrown in a heap For sheep gates in the walls of Ancient Zion! THE MUNICIPAL PIER