Page:Slabs of the sunburnt West.djvu/29
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The Windy City
15
If the people of the city all move away and leave no people at all to watch and keep the city.It is wisdom to think no city stood here at all until the working men, the laughing men, came.It is wisdom to think to-morrow new working men, new laughing men, may come and put up a new city—Living lighted skyscrapers and a night lingo of lanterns testify to-morrow shall have its own say-so.
9Night gathers itself into a ball of dark yarn.Night loosens the ball and it spreads.The lookouts from the shores of Lake Michigan find night follows day, and ping! ping! across sheet gray the boat lights put their signals.Night lets the dark yarn unravel, Night speaks and the yarns change to fog and blue strands.
The lookouts turn to the city.
The canyons swarm with red sand lights of the sunset.The atoms drop and sift, blues cross over, yellows plunge.Mixed light shafts stack their bayonets, pledge with crossed handles.So, when the canyons swarm, it is then the lookouts speakOf the high spots over a street … mountain languageOf skyscrapers in dusk, the Railway Exchange,The People's Gas, the Monadnock, the Transportation,Gone to the gloaming.
The canyons swarm with red sand lights of the sunset.The atoms drop and sift, blues cross over, yellows plunge.Mixed light shafts stack their bayonets, pledge with crossed handles.So, when the canyons swarm, it is then the lookouts speakOf the high spots over a street … mountain languageOf skyscrapers in dusk, the Railway Exchange,The People's Gas, the Monadnock, the Transportation,Gone to the gloaming.