Brooklyn Bridge

No lifeless thing of iron and stone,
But sentient, as her children are,
Nature accepts you for her own,
Kin to the cataract and the star.

She marks your vast, sufficing plan,
Cable and girder, bolt and rod,
And takes you, from the hand of man,
For some new handiwork of God.

You thrill through all your chords of steel
Responsive to the living sun;
And quickening in your nerves you feel
Life with its conscious currents run.

Your anchorage upbears the march
Of time and the eternal powers.
The sky admits your perfect arch,
The rock respects your stable towers.