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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BRIDGE: PROEM. TO BROOKLYN BRIDGE, by HAROLD HART CRANE Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest Last Line: And of the curveship lend a myth to god. Alternate Author Name(s): Crane, Hart Subject(s): Americans; Bible; Bridges; Brooklyn Bridge; Freedom; Imagination; Religion; United States; Vision; Liberty; Fancy; Theology; America | |||
How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him, Shedding white rings of tumult, building high Over the chained bay waters Liberty -- Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes As apparitional as sails that cross Some page of figures to be filed away; -- Till elevators drop us from our day ... I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene Never disclosed, but hastened to again, Foretold to other eyes on the same screen; And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced As though the sun took step of thee, yet left Some motion ever unspent in thy stride, -- Implicitly thy freedom staying thee! Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets, Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning, A jest falls from the speechless caravan. Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks, A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene; All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn ... Thy cables, breathe the North Atlantic still. And obscure as that heaven of the Jews, Thy guerdon ... Accolade thou dost bestow Of anonymity time cannot raise: Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show. O harp and altar, of the fury fused, (How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!) Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge, Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,-- Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars, Beading thy path--condense eternity: And we have seen night lifted in thine arms. Under thy shadow by the piers I waited; Only in darkness is thy shadow clear. The City's fiery parcels all undone, Already snow submerges an iron year... O Sleepless as the river under thee, Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod, Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend And of the curveship lend a myth to God. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JULY FOURTH BY THE OCEAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS WATCH THE LIGHTS FADE by ROBINSON JEFFERS AFTER TENNYSON by AMBROSE BIERCE MEETING YOU AT THE PIERS by KENNETH KOCH INVOCATION TO THE SOCIAL MUSE by ARCHIBALD MACLEISH EPISODE OF HANDS by HAROLD HART CRANE FORGETFULNESS by HAROLD HART CRANE PRAISE FOR AN URN; IN MEMORIAM: ERNEST NELSON by HAROLD HART CRANE |
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