October I5th, 1910.
My friend, dear friend, why should I hear your voice
Over the Babel of voices, suddenly 
Calling as from the new world to the old? 
Hush!?are you weary? would you follow me? 
Would you make dark the house, and shut the door,
Summon steam-pacing trains, wave-racing ships, 
To bear you past the high assembled nations? 
Past the loud cries, the plucking hands of the age? 
Even to the East that drowses on her throne?

Come then?it's good to be alive today; 
For yesterday is dead, and dim tomorrow
Flits like a ghost before us, threatening 
Our peering eyes with mistily flapping wings. 
Grandly the streets loom upward; huge skyscrapers
Catch at the glory of the sunrise, wear 
The morning like a mantle, bare their heads 
In praise and prayer. And with us on the pavement, 
Above us in the air there, and below, 
Under our feet, by train and tram and subway, 
The people bear the burden of the age? 
Each to his work, each to his love, his dream, 
The little secret vision of his soul, 
Veiled, muffled, trampled, baffled, but agleam: 
Our people, eager to work, eager to laugh, 
Eager to love?if but to love were easy, 
Pausing not for the slow and difficult thing 
As they push past their neighbors to the goal. 

Now to the ship?down the long crowded wharves,
The tangle of souls and voices threading thinly 
Through the slight gangway. Do you see her there? 
Huge, black, incredible, fortress-walled in steel,
Hiding her heart of fire? She has no fear; 
The fierce waves leap at her, the arrogant storms
Tease at her flying heels, the boastful winds 
Front her in vain. Superb, invincible, 
From world to world, over the ravenous ocean 
Grandly she bears the fruitage of the time: 
Rich fields of corn, mill-yields of goods, long train-loads 
Of strong machines, man's hope and love and power
Sealed in a million letters, and at last 
Even us, the little human mustard seeds? 
Dark earth-specks with the kingdom of heaven within.

Gaily we tread the deck, softly we sleep, 
Lightly we chatter away the idle days, 
While strong hands, from dark hold to sunny mast,
Do our enormous tasks. And now at last 
The world again, low chalky cliffs, the shore, 
Parked England silvery green, her viny casements 
And dewy lawns, her iron towns of toil 
Smoke-bound, unfree. And London, stony London,
Gray storehouse of the heaped-up centuries, 
Of hidden sins and valors, locked-in joys; 
London the empire-hearted, grave with cares 
Under her tawny sky that dulls the sun.

We linger not?swiftly the new age runs 
And he must haste who takes her by the hand. 
Over the Channel! Come! the little houses 
And patchwork fields of France. Paris fullblown, 
The red red rose of the world, whose golden heart 
Lies bare to the greedy sun, whose petals droop
Ever so softly to the falling time, 
Most lovely at the signal hour of change. 
Germany then, the little patterned cities 
Of the old time swept, garnished for the new; 
The ancient halls hung with the ancient art, 
And musical with high-stringed orchestras 
Playing melodious prophecies; gay Berlin, 
Garish, unmellowed, pale, but full of hope, 
And proud desire. 

Ah whither do they march, 
These nations with the sweat upon their brows, 
Huge burden-bearers, panoplied in steel, 
Facing bleak mists of doubt? Will they cast 
down Their heavy fears and bathe their brows in light
And freely run across the fields of dawn? 
Children of joy, blood brothers born in love, 
Valiant for peace as once for murderous war? 
Nearer they draw, trimly the sharp rails cut 
Their boundaries?twin scissor-blades of fate. 
Swift steamers tie their ports together, bring 
Tourist ambassadors from state to state. 
Bold man-birds fly through the unsentineled air, 
And cobweb wires invisible, more strong 
Than chains of steel, are spun from tower to tower,
Bridging the oceans, linking capitals, 
Binding men's hearts. O kings of the peopled earth,
O men, rulers of kings, dare you resist 
Warriors of science, who are blazing trails 
Your statesmenship must travel to new goals? 
Laggards, beware lest the advancing myriads, 
Bound for the promised land, trample you down!

Dark Russia, standing at the Asian gate, 
Questions us with her eastward-peering eyes. 
Proud Moscow from her hundred towers looks out?
Moscow, bejeweled with domes, magnificent, 
Out of her past barbaric gazes far 
Into the future, swings her Kremlin portal 
To show the sad Siberian wilderness, 
And bids us follow through the autumnal days. 
Softly we slip along the garnered fields, 
Past clustered villages, low-thatched and brown, 
Each with a gay church gilded; shimmer down 
The shining Urals, and salute at last 
Great Asia where