Classic Poem

Is there no ivy greener than the rest,
No amaranth from shadowy isles Elysian,
That we may lay upon thy snow-heaped breast,
Year of the Vision?

For thou hast touched this people to a grace
That half rebukes the solitary ditty.
All men were poets for one brief, bright space
In the White City.

Beyond the circle of her glistening domes
A bitter wind swept by to waste and wither.
A cry went up from hunger-smitten homes,
But came not hither.

So fair she stood, imparadised within
Her own delight, as film of elfin labor,
A moonshine fabric, far from stain and din
Of her dark neighbor.

And yet Chicago, from her troubled gloom,
Young daughter of the young, undaunted nation,
Breathed in this evanescent lily-bloom
Heart-aspiration.

For through all stress of the material strife,
The greed, the clash, the coarse, unlovely fashion,
America bears on to sweeter life
And purer passion.

Oh, sting our souls with this diviner need
And, ere thou fadest, take our high decision
To make thy radiant dream immortal deed,
Year of the Vision.