THE PORT OF NEW YORK
Wait for a berth-who know all knots, riggings,
The wheel's kick and the gloryhole-ordering coffee and.
But still up Whitehall drape shipowners' flags
And hunger has not changed Trinity's known site.
Locked in their vaults, the gilt-edged shares repose all night,
And pigeons alone assault
th~
Treasury's bronze doors. ·
Through bankrupts, panics, crashes, the Exchange,
Though shaken on its pillars, knows no change.
Safe in your room, unpack and watch the evening fall.
The lamps come suddenly to life, as though
Touched by a secret hand to tungsten glow.
After your supper, served in the hotel grill,
11
The night awaits you; sightseer's bus will take you round the
town.
The barker will explain each famous sight.
The Mission of the Holy N arne, the Bowery and Chinatown,
Hung with gold lanterns, tong wars-and further down
Through twisted streets to little Italy
And garlic smells-perhaps in Cherry Street you'll see
The celebration of the feat of Maria Negre, the black Mary,
Worshipped with white candles and pushcarts on the curb.
Peer through the smoky window, remember all the names you've
heard;
Back home you'll quiver the persimmoned souls
Of village aunts with murder dives, gin mills and opium holes.
Up through Delancey smile at the derby hats and rabbi beards.
But through the motor's purr is still unheard
The sweatshop's hiss of steam... the Hoffman's pressmg roar...
When drunken laborers come lurching through the swinging
barroom door
Down on Third Avenue, under the El's shadow, think
What terrors the barker has not spieled has driven them to drink.
Then rumbling through Fourteenth you hit the Square.
And now Broadway again ... this is the terminal, the end,
Lights
I
lights !-Times Square.
Through midnight throngs, under the dancing signs,
Among the tinhorn sports, the small time gamblers,
The hoofers out of work, the stenos taking in a show,
The restaurants with flapjaks and the Roseland Ramblers
Playing the latest dance hit-with thousands go.
