‘Light masculine’

State Street, Hartford, in 1914. The city long called itself “The Insurance Capital of the World’’.

It is Hartford seen in a purple light.
A moment ago, light masculine,
Working, with big hands, on the town,
Arranged its heroic attitudes.
But as in an amour of women
Purple sets purple around. Look Mater,
See the river, the railroad, the cathedral..."

— From “Of Hartford in a Purple Light,’’ by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), Hartford-based poet and insurance executive