Powell Street by Charlotte Perkins Gilman — Read

You start / From the town's hot heart / To ride up Powell Street. / Hotel and theatre and crowding shops, / And Market's cabled stream that never stops, / And the mixed hurrying beat / Of countless feet- / Take a front seat. / Before you rise / Six terraced hills, up to the low-hung skies; / Low where across the hill they seem to lie, / And then-how high! / Up you go slowly. To the right / A wide square, green and bright. / Above that green a broad facade, / Strongly and beautifully made, / In warm clear color standeth fair and true / Against the blue. / Only, above, two purple domes rise bold, / Twin-budded spires, bright-tipped with balls of gold. / Past that, and up you glide, / Up, up, till, either side, / Wide earth and water stretch around-away- / The straits, the hills, and the low-lying, wide-spread, dusky bay. / Great houses here, / Dull, opulent, severe. / Dives' gold birds on guarding lamps a-wing- / Dead gold, that may not sing! / Fair on the other side / Smooth, steep-laid sweeps of turf and green boughs waving wide. / This is the hilltop's crown. / Below you, down / In blurred, dim streets, the market quarter lies, / Foul, narrow, torn with cries / Of tortured things in cages, and the smell / Of daily bloodshed rising; that is hell.

But up here on the crown of Powell Street / The air is sweet; / And the green swaying mass of eucalyptus bends / Like hands of friends, / To gladden you despite the mansions' frown. / Then you go down.