Delmore Schwartz: Poet of America 🇺🇸

I am a poet of the Hudson River and the heights above it, <br /> the lights, the stars, and the bridges <br />I am also by self-appointment the laureate of the Atlantic <br /> -of the peoples' hearts, crossing it <br /> to new America. <br /> <br />I am burdened with the truck and chimera, hope, <br /> acquired in the sweating sick-excited passage <br /> in steerage, strange and estranged <br />Hence I must descry and describe the kingdom of emotion. <br /> <br />For I am a poet of the kindergarten (in the city) <br /> and the cemetery (in the city) <br />And rapture and ragtime and also the secret city in the <br /> heart and mind <br />This is the song of the natural city self in the 20th century. <br /> <br />It is true but only partly true that a city is a "tyranny of <br /> numbers" <br />(This is the chant of the urban metropolitan and <br /> metaphysical self <br />After the first two World Wars of the 20th century) <br /> <br />--- This is the city self, looking from window to lighted <br /> window <br />When the squares and checks of faintly yellow light <br />Shine at night, upon a huge dim board and slab-like tombs, <br />Hiding many lives. It is the city consciousness <br />Which sees and says: more: more and more: always more.<br /><br />Delmore Schwartz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/america-america/