Voyages V

by Hart Crane

Meticulous, past midnight in clear rime,
Infrangible and lonely, smooth as though cast
Together in one merciless white blade—
The bay estuaries fleck the hard sky limits.

—As if too brittle or too clear to touch!
The cables of our sleep so swiftly filed,
Already hang, shred ends from remembered stars.
One frozen trackless smile… What words
Can strangle this deaf moonlight? For we

Are overtaken. Now no cry, no sword
Can fasten or deflect this tidal wedge,
Slow tyranny of moonlight, moonlight loved
And changed… “There’s

Nothing like this in the world,” you say,
Knowing I cannot touch your hand and look
Too, into that godless cleft of sky
Where nothing turns but dead sands flashing.

“—And never to quite understand!” No,
In all the argosy of your bright hair I dreamed
Nothing so flagless as this piracy.

                                               But now
Draw in your head, alone and too tall here.
Your eyes already in the slant of drifting foam;
Your breath sealed by the ghosts I do not know:
Draw in your head and sleep the long way home.

Harold Hart Crane was a poet from the Modernist movement. He was the author of White Buildings (Boni and Liveright, 1926), as well as The Bridge (The Black Sun Press, 1930), remembered as a key work of early Modernism. He died on April 27, 1932.

---

I subscribe to poem-a-day which you also may enjoy by clicking the link.  This poem moved me.  I felt moved by the poet’s recollection of an early morning, perhaps a sleepless night.  He views the shoreline from afar at the boundary of the sky by moonlight.  He knows that no words are apt for what he experiences.  “What words can strangle this deaf moonlight? For we are overtaken.”  He remembers someone who he loves.  Is the poet experiencing disappointment over unfulfilled love, a failed relationship?  “I dreamed nothing so flagless as this piracy.”  The poet confesses there is much he will never understand.  He wishes his love a peaceful sleep.

---

Philosophical note

The poem reminds me of a famous quotation by Ludwig Wittgenstein:

“Not how the world is the mystical, but that it is.” He elaborates: “We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.”

— L. Wittgenstein. Tractatus logico–philosophicus, 6.44.

---

This tune seems “right” to complement this poem, delicately pointing to the untouched problems of life.

Slip Slidin’ Away

By Simon and Garfunkel

[Chorus:]
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away

Whoah and I know a man, he came from my hometown
He wore his passion for his woman like a thorny crown
He said Dolores, I live in fear
My love for you’s so overpowering, I’m afraid that I will disappear

[Chorus]

I know a woman, (who) became a wife
These are the very words she uses to describe her life
She said a good day ain’t got no rain
She said a bad day is when I lie in the bed
And I think of things that might have been

[Chorus]

And I know a father who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he’d done
He came a long way just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and he headed home again

[Chorus]

Whoah God only knows, God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable to the mortal man
We’re workin’ our jobs, collect our pay
Believe we’re gliding down the highway, when in fact we’re slip sliding away

[Chorus 2x]

Lyrics by Paul Simon