Classic Poem

Strait river, with its hoarse and feverous flood
Of money-makers; on that turbulent tide
Hourly men sink, or bring their argosies
To unhoped havens. On that tiny stage
The day-dream of the dollar is played out
In tragic throes that shake the land; there gold
Is God, the devotees are hollow-eyed.

A touch brings London; at a mystic word
The tropics tremble; while an unpraised hand
Withers broad grain-fields lovely in the sun
A thousand leagues away.
Meanwhile, the spire
Of Trinity, as set in satire there,
Points with insistent finger to the skies
Placid above this lust of loss-and-gain,
And underneath, the aisles of peace and prayer
Await the worshipers who still would place
Christ above Mammon, love before the world.