from The Bridge: Southern Cross

Hart Crane

I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South,
No wraith, but utterly-as still more alone
The Southern Cross takes night
And lifts her girdles from her, one by one-
High, cool,
wide from the slowly smoldering fire
Of lower heavens,-
vaporous scars!

Eve! Magdalene!
or Mary, you?

Whatever call-falls vainly on the wave.
O simian Venus, homeless Eve,
Unwedded, stumbling gardenless to grieve
Windswept guitars on lonely decks forever;
Finally to answer all within one grave!

And this long wake of phosphor,
iridescent
Furrow of all our travel-trailed derision!
Eyes crumble at its kiss. Its long-drawn spell
Incites a yell. Slid on that backward vision
The mind is churned to spittle, whispering hell.

I wanted you . . . The embers of the Cross
Climbed by aslant and huddling aromatically.
It is blood to remember; it is fire
To stammer back . . . It is
God-your namelessness. And the wash-

All night the water combed you with black
Insolence. You crept out simmering, accomplished.
Water rattled that stinging coil, your
Rehearsed hair-docile, alas, from many arms.
Yes, Eve-wraith of my unloved seed!

The Cross, a phantom, buckled-dropped below the dawn.
Light drowned the lithic trillions of your spawn.