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Harold Hart Crane - Southern Cross
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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.
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