by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
City of Ships
Language: English
City of ships! (O the black ships! O the fierce ships! O the beautiful sharp-bow'd steam-ships and sail-ships!) City of the world! (for all races are here, All the lands of the earth make contributions here;) City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides! City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out with eddies and foam! City of wharves and stores—city of tall facades of marble and iron! Proud and passionate city—mettlesome, mad, extravagant city! Spring up O city—not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike! Fear not—submit to no models but your own O city! Behold me—incarnate me as I have incarnated you! I have rejected nothing you offer'd me—whom you adopted I have adopted, Good or bad I never question you—I love all—I do not condemn any thing, I chant and celebrate all that is yours—yet peace no more, In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine, War, red war is my song through your streets, O city!
Authorship:
- by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "City of Ships", appears in Drum Taps, no. 8 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Joe LoCascio (b. 1955), "City of Ships", 2017, copyright © 2017, first performed 2017 [ soprano voice and piano ], from Six Songs on Poems of Walt Whitman, no. 6, Gently Criminal Publishing [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Andrew Schneider [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2019-11-04
Line count: 18
Word count: 172