Repose of Rivers

Hart Crane is one of those poets who never really became a household name, which, considering that he was a poet, isn't really saying much. His life was, as you might guess, rather tragic: sexuality-related guilt, alcoholism, unrequited love, crippling depression...he was constantly afraid of losing his artistic capability, and I'm under the impression that this unease morphed into a self-fulfilling prophecy, one which resulted in his suicide in 1932. Despite this, he was able to create some decent poetry, poetry whose influence is still present in today's American poetry, or so I would argue.

At the Brooklyn Bridge, date unknown (at least to me)

Here is a poem from his first collection.

"Repose of Rivers"

The willows carried a slow sound,
A sarabande the wind mowed on the mead.
I could never remember
That seething, steady leveling of the marshes
Till age had brought me to the sea.

Flags, weeds. And remembrance of steep alcoves

Where cypresses shared the noon’s

Tyranny; they drew me into hades almost.

And mammoth turtles climbing sulphur dreams

Yielded, while sun-silt rippled them

Asunder ...

How much I would have bartered! the black gorge

And all the singular nestings in the hills

Where beavers learn stitch and tooth.

The pond I entered once and quickly fled—

I remember now its singing willow rim.

And finally, in that memory all things nurse;

After the city that I finally passed

With scalding unguents spread and smoking darts

The monsoon cut across the delta

At gulf gates ... There, beyond the dykes

I heard wind flaking sapphire, like this summer,

And willows could not hold more steady sound.

-From White Buildings (1926)