Classic Poem

Hanging from the bay bough's azure heights —
Affluent bough like matron's flowing breast —
Baltimore in black and golden lights
Flashes like the oriole from its nest;
Round the red warehouses on their slips,
Through the old commercial city's maze,
Stands a phantom fleet of yarded ships,
Rumbles the long serenade of drays.

First of Western cities in our land,
Last born sailor-city of the East,
Inland reached its pike-roads like a hand,
Oceanward, like Venice, it increased.
Washington beheld it as a weed,
Ere he died its splendor looked upon,
Growing with the genius and speed
Of its one compeer, Napoleon.

He, the Doge of Europe, reaching o'er,
Adriatic Chesapeake to wed,
Dropped a wedding ring in Baltimore,
Left his last successor in its bed;
Still its beauteous women like the noon
With their dusky eyelids' sweeping wings,
Give the strangers' heart a summer swoon;
Whom they love are happier than Kings.

Fleeing Congress sought it a retreat;
Base of vict'ry gathered at Yorktown;
Samson grinding in its mills of wheat,
All the bayports fell to its renown.
Iron, marble, bitumen and brick
Grew as shellfish near its deep'ning piers;
Landsmen banded in its mecanique;
All its water-men were privateers.

Athens might old tyrants fawn upon:
Spartan Baltimore, our young recourse,
Formed her phalanx around Madison —
Taught America another force.
When our flag the smoke o'er Henry clomb,
Key's bright anthem, in spontaneous flow,
Arched it like the streaming of the bomb —
Arch that rounded in the pool of Poe.

As the blue streams flow toward the bay
And the golden wheat toward the mills,
To the milling city take their way
Blue and flaxen Germans from the hills.
Like the twilights on the Chesapeake,
Which through crystal bars their purple pour,
Latin, Creole, Moorish contrasts streak
British, Celtic, Baltic Baltimore.

Stepping down the spires to the ships,
Like the cascades from their woodland wells, —
Like the melodies of lovers' lips, —
Chime the foundry city's tender bells,
And the pungy fleet from Eastern Shore
Skimming like the wild fowl on the dawn,
Brings the pearly sweets to Baltimore,
Riding in the basin like its swan.

First in War, his column calm upon,
Stands the great Virginian, looking o'er,
Where the victor ranks of Wellington
Broke before the boys of Baltimore;
And the last survivor, left alone
Of the Magna Charta's daring theme,
Laid the nave's cathedral corner-stone
O'er the young nativity of Steam.

As the tree its annual growth compiles,
Binding silently the circle's marks,
Grew the beech tree Annual of Niles,
Budded evergreen the staff of Sparks.
O, ye merchants! on your commonweal
Sits the raven, saying " Nevermore "
To the native palette of your Peale;
Wirt and Kennedy were Baltimore.

Forum of the Capital, herein
Met the Tribunes in Convention first,
Making Presidents amidst the din,
Where the local factions fretted worst;
Jackson broke Virginia's cabal,
Pierce, Van Buren passed the chariot score,
Lincoln crowned upon the Lupercal
Faced his martyrdom from Baltimore.

As for Helen's beauty, all the Greeks
Troy besieged, the valiant armies tore
All thy ports and plateaus, Chesapeake!
For thy bloom's possession, Baltimore!
In thy heart two spouses did contend
And to each one thou had'st given thy hand,
But the ring thou cherished to the end
Was thy mother's blessing, Maryland!

Gliding in the current like the boat,
That in times colonial was their chaise,
Dove-pure, in the hurly-burly float
Faces of the old tidewater days;
Matrons of the Marylander peace,
Daughters of the old housekeeping life;
In their arms is " Multiply! Increase! "
In their souls, religion of The Wife.

As the white mists go up from the bay
To the marble heights that oversee,
All the life colonial clears away
To the city's higher destiny.
On the railways of the mainland shore,
Midst the Cinque Ports' warden cities strung,
Shines the jewel light of Baltimore,
Like a star, Orion's Belt among.