City of Ships by Walt Whitman — Read

City of ships! / (O the black ships! O the fierce ships! / O the beautiful, sharp-bowed 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 offered me -- whom you adopted, I have adopted; / Good or bad, I never question you -- I love all -- I do not condemn anything; / 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!