Hart Crane: At Melville’s Tomb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides … High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

~~~~~~
Public Domain

Source: Poetry magazine, vol. 29, no. 1 (October 1926)

Harold Hart Crane (1899 – 1932) was an American poet who wrote highly stylized modernist poetry, often noted for its complexity. His collection White Buildings (1926), featuring “Chaplinesque”, “At Melville’s Tomb”, “Repose of Rivers” and “Voyages”, helped to cement his place in the avant-garde literary scene of the time. The long poem The Bridge (1930) is an epic inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge. On April 27, 1932, Crane jumped overboard from a steamship into the Gulf of Mexico.  Although he had been drinking heavily and left no suicide note, witnesses believed his intentions to be suicidal, as several reported that he exclaimed “Goodbye, everybody!” before jumping overboard. His body was never recovered.