“Lay me on an anvil, O God.Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.Let me pry loose old walls.Let me lift and loosen old foundations. Lay me on an anvil, O God.Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars.”

“Give me hunger,O you gods that sit and giveThe world its orders.Give me hunger, pain and want,Shut me out with shame and failureFrom your doors of gold and fame,Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!But leave me a little love,A voice to speak to me in the day end,A hand to touch me in the dark roomBreaking the long loneliness.”

“Give me hunger, pain and want,Shut me out with shame and failureFrom your doors of gold and fame,Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!But leave me a little love.”

“There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud”

“Now I am here - now read me - give me a name.”

“By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul.”

“I am stone and steel of your sleeping numbers;I remember all you forget.I will die as many timesas you make me over again.”