Chapter III: Book ONE: Crowds and Machines

TO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

_"A battered, wrecked old man
Thrown on this savage shore far, far from home,
Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows twelve dreary months
... The end I know not, it is all in Thee,
Or small or great I know not--haply what broad fields, what
lands!...

And these things I see suddenly, what mean they
As if some miracle, some hand divine unsealed my eyes,
Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,
And on the distant waves sail countless ships,
And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me."_