Line 21; “Down Wall” – Wall Street
L.ine22; “acetylene” – a colorless, pungent-smelling hydrocarbon gas, which burns with a hot, bright flame (OED)
“Acetylene,” John D. Beveridge, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
- Line 26; “guerdon”: a reward, requital, or recompense (OED)
- Line 26; “accolade” – properly, an embrace or clasping about the neck; technical name of the salutation marking the bestowal ofknighthood, applied at different times to an embrace, a kiss, and a slap n the shoulders with the flat blade of a sword (OED)
- Line 29; “harp”- referring to an Eolian harp, an instrument that is meant to be played by the wind. Romantic writers and poets frequently wrote about Eolian harps. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a very famous poem entitled “The Eolian Harp”
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Line 31; “prophets pledge” – reference to a story from the Quran in which Allah pledges to send a prophet to his people. This story is very similar to the Bible, in which God promises to send a messiah to his followers, which some claim was Jesus.
Line 32; “prayers of pariah” – reference to Johan Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem “The Pariah’s Prayer.” This poem is that of a Hindi pariah appealing to God.
- Line 31-32; “Terrific threshold…lover’s cry” – In these lines Crane refers to three different religions, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism and secularism adding a deeper, religious significance to the Brooklyn bridge
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
"Krishna Statue at the Sri Mariamman Temple" by AngMoKi, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Star of David, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
- Line 39; “City’s fiery parcels” – This is possibly a reference to the traffic or street lights
“Stop Light,” Courtesy of FreeFoto.com