This is the music of the cities of the morning:
Pounding of steel girders, clank of broken chains,
Cries of wordy prophets, shouting out a warning
To the silent, smiling watchers in the busy crowd;
Bidding them look up, shoulder to the morning,
Brush back the clouds from the foreheads of the nations,
Beat their drums of challenge in the Eastern countries,
Stack up golden grain in the larders of the city.
Exploit the farmers, use all their produce,
Harry their homes and their land without pay…….
In one of the houses a woman is singing,
Singing this refrain to an infant in a cradle:
“—All the sons of morning to your hands are bringing
      Gifts of gold, and gifts of jewels, and their flags unfurled—
The journey’s just started, the joy is yet yours,
      Gather the blossoms of the wide, wide, world.”
This is the music of the cities of the morning:
Pounding of the girders, rattling of trains,
Paeans of church organs, sound of children singing,
And the soft, sweet stillness of the glad refrains:
“All the sons of morning to our hands are bringing
Gifts of gold, and gifts of silver, and their flags unfurled..
The journey’s just started, the joy is yet ours,
We’ll gather the blossoms of the wide, wide world.”