Part 3 (1/2)

Blue smoke from out a roasting room is pouring.

A rooster crows, geese cackle, men are bawling.

Whips crack, trucks creak, it is the place of storing, And drawing out and loading up and hauling Fruit, vegetables and fowls and steaks and hams, Oysters and lobsters, fish and crabs and clams.

And near at hand are restaurants and bars, Hotels with rooms at fifty cents a day, Beer tunnels, pool rooms, places where cigars And cigarettes their window signs display; Mixed in with letterings of printed tags, Twine, boxes, cartels, sacks and leather bags, Wigs, telescopes, eyegla.s.ses, ladies' tresses, Or those who manicure or fas.h.i.+on dresses, Or sell us putters, tennis b.a.l.l.s or bra.s.sies, Make shoes, pull teeth, or fit the eye with gla.s.ses.

And now the rows of windows showing laces, Silks, draperies and furs and costly vases, Watches and mirrors, silver cups and mugs, Emeralds, diamonds, Indian, Persian rugs, Hats, velvets, silver buckles, ostrich-plumes, Drugs, violet water, powder and perfumes.

Here is a monstrous winking eye--beneath A showcase by an entrance full of teeth.

Here rubber coats, umbrellas, mackintoshes, Hoods, rubber boots and arctics and galoshes.

Here is half a block of overcoats, In this bleak time of snow and slender throats.

Then windows of fine linen, snakewood canes, Scarfs, opera hats, in use where fas.h.i.+on reigns.

As when the hive swarms, so the crowded street Roars to the shuffling of innumerable feet.

Skysc.r.a.pers soar above them; they go by As bees crawl, little scales upon the skin Of a great dragon winding out and in.

Above them hangs a tangled tree of signs, Suspended or uplifted like daedalian Hieroglyphics when the saturnalian Night commences, and their racing lines Run fire of blue and yellow in a puzzle, Bewildering to the eyes of those who guzzle, And gourmandize and stroll and seek the bubble Of happiness to put away their trouble.

Around the loop the elevated crawls, And giant shadows sink against the walls Where ten to twenty stories strive to hold The pale refraction of the sunset's gold.

Slop underfoot, we pa.s.s beneath the loop.

The crowd is uglier, poorer; there are smells As from the depths of unsuspected h.e.l.ls, And from a groggery where beer and soup Are sold for five cents to the thieves and b.u.ms.

Here now are huge cartoons in red and blue Of obese women and of skeleton men, Egyptian dancers, twined with monstrous snakes, Before the door a turbaned lithe Hindoo, A bagpipe shrilling, underneath a den Of opium, whence a man with hand that shakes, Rolling a cigarette, so palely comes.

The clang of car bells and the beat of drums.

Draft horses clamping with their steel-shod hoofs.

The buildings have grown small and black and worn; The sky is more beholden; o'er the roofs A flock of pigeons soars; with dresses torn And yellow faces, labor women pa.s.s Some Chinese gabbling; and there, buying fruit, Stands a fair girl who is a late recruit To those poor women slain each year by l.u.s.t.

'Tis evening now and trade will soon begin.

The family entrance beckons for a gla.s.s Of hopeful mockery, the piano's din Into the street with sounds of rasping wires Filters, and near a p.a.w.ner's window shows Pistols, accordions; and, luring buyers, A Jew stands mumbling to the pa.s.ser-by Of jewelry and watches and old clothes.

A limousine gleams quickly--with a cry A legless man fastened upon a board With casters 'neath it by a sudden shove Darts out of danger. And upon the corner A la.s.sie tells a man that G.o.d is love, Holding a tambourine with its copper h.o.a.rd To be augmented by the drunken scorner.

A woman with no eyeb.a.l.l.s in her sockets Plays ”Rock of Ages” on a wheezy organ.

A newsboy with cold hands thrust in his pockets Cries, ”All about the will of Pierpont Morgan!”

The roofline of the street now sinks and dwindles.

The windows are begrimed with dust and beer.

A child half clothed, with legs as thin as spindles, Carries a basket with some bits of coal.

Between lace curtains eyes of yellow leer, The cheeks splotched with white places like the skin Inside an eggsh.e.l.l--dest.i.tute of soul.

One sees a bra.s.s lamp oozing kerosene Upon a stand whereon her elbows lean; Lighted, it soon will welcome negroes in.

The railroad tracks are near. We almost choke From filth whirled from the street and stinging vapors.

Great engines vomit gas and heavy smoke Upon a north wind driving tattered papers, Dry dung and dust and refuse down the street.

A circ.u.mambient roar as of a wheel Whirring far off--a monster's heart whose beat Is full of murmurs, comes as we retreat Towards Twenty-second. And a man with jaw Set like a tiger's, with a dirty beard, Skulks toward the loop, with heavy wrists red-raw Glowing above his pockets where his hands Pushed tensely round his hips the coat tails draw, And show what seems a slender piece of metal In his hip pocket. On these barren strands He waits for midnight for old scores to settle Against his ancient foe society, Who keeps the soup house and who builds the jails.

Switchmen and firemen with their dinner pails Go by him homeward, and he wonders if These fellows know a hundred thousand workers Walk up and down the city's highways, stiff From cold and hunger, doomed to poverty, As wretched as the thieves and crooks and s.h.i.+rkers.

He scurries to the lake front, loiters past The windows of wax lights with scarlet shades, Where smiling diners back of ambuscades Of silk and velvet hear not winter's blast Blowing across the lake. He has a thought Of Michigan, where once at picking berries He spent a summer--then his eye is caught At Randolph street by written light which tarries, Then like a film runs into sentences.

He sees it all as from a black abyss.