CITY of orgies, walks and joys! 
City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make you illustrious, 
Not the pageants of you—not your shifting tableaux, your spectacles, repay me; 
Not the interminable rows of your houses—nor the ships at the wharves, 
Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows, with goods in them;
Nor to converse with learn’d persons, or bear my share in the soiree or feast; 
Not those—but, as I pass, O Manhattan! your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering
    me
	love, 
Offering response to my own—these repay me; 
Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.

Poet: Walt Whitman
Poem: 15. City of Orgies.
Volume: Leaves of Grass
- 3. Calamus
Year: Published/Written in 1900
Poem of the Day: Oct 30 2005

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