Skyscrapers, helmeted, stand sentinel

Amid the obscuring fumes of coal and coke,

Raised by enchantment out of the sand and bog.

This sky-line, the Sierras of the lake,

Cuts with dulled teeth,

Which twist and break,

The imponderable and drifting steam.

And restlessly beneath

This man-created mountain chain,

Like the flow of a prairie river