{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/the-great-cities",
 "title": "The Great Cities",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished",
 "book_slug": "poems-now-first-collected",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 3,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1911 first collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from and the first to give the poem a title, not necessarily the poem's first appearance: the volume's own title page describes it as now first collected and revised, and eleven of these twelve poems had already been printed untitled in Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land (1908).",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft"
  ]
 },
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  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 34,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "How wonderful are the cities that man hath builded:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their walls are compacted of heavy stones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their lofty towers rise above the tree-tops.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Rome, Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Venice, Constantinople, Moscow, Pekin⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "London, New York, Berlin, Paris, Vienna⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "These are the names of mighty enchantments,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They have called to the ends of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They have secretly summoned a host of servants.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They shine from far sitting beside great waters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are proudly enthroned upon high hills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They spread out their splendour along the rivers.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet are they all the work of small patient fingers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their strength is in the hand of man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hath woven his flesh and blood into their glory.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The cities are scattered over the world like anthills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every one of them is full of trouble and toil,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their makers run to and fro within them.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Abundance of riches is laid up in their treasuries,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But they are tormented with the fear of want,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cry of the poor in their streets is exceeding bitter.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Their inhabitants are driven by blind perturbations,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They whirl sadly in the fever of haste,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeking they know not what, they pursue it fiercely.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The air is heavy-laden with their breathing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sound of their coming and going is never still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even in the night I hear them whispering and crying.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Beside every ant-hill I behold a monster crouching:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This is the ant-lion Death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He thrusteth forth his tongue and the people perish.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O God of wisdom thou hast made the country:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why hast thou suffered man to make the town?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then God answered, Surely I am the maker of man:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the heart of man I have set the city.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}