Explore "The Apartment House" by Joyce Kilmer on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Severe against the pleasant arc of sky / The great stone box is cruelly displayed. / The street becomes more dreary from its shade, / And vagrant breezes touch its walls and die. / Here sullen convicts in their chains might lie, / Or slaves toil dumbly at some dreary trade. / How worse than folly is their labour made / Who cleft the rocks that this might rise on high!
Yet, as I look, I see a woman's face / Gleam from a window far above the street. / This is a house of homes, a sacred place, / By human passion made divinely sweet. / How all the building thrills with sudden grace / Beneath the magic of Love's golden feet!