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Harold Hart Crane - Quaker Hill
Work rating: Low

Perspective never withers from their eyes; 
They keep that docile edict of the Spring 
That blends March with August Antarctic skies: 
These are but cows that see no other thing 
Than grass and snow, and their own inner being 
Through the rich halo that they do not trouble 
Even to cast upon the seasons fleeting 
Though they should thin and die on last year’s stubble. 


And they are awkward, ponderous and uncoy . . . 
While we who press the cider mill, regarding them— 
We, who with pledges taste the bright annoy 
Of friendship’s acid wine, retarding phlegm, 
Shifting reprisals (’til who shall tell us when 
The jest is too sharp to be kindly?) boast 
Much of our store of faith in other men 
Who would, ourselves, stalk down the merriest ghost. 


Above them old Mizzentop, palatial white 
Hostelry—floor by floor to cinquefoil dormer 
Portholes the ceilings stack their stoic height. 
Long tiers of windows staring out toward former 
Faces—loose panes crown the hill and gleam 
At sunset with a silent, cobwebbed patience . . . 
See them, like eyes that still uphold some dream 
Through mapled vistas, cancelled reservations! 


High from the central cupola, they say 
One’s glance could cross the borders of three states; 
But I have seen death’s stare in slow survey 
From four horizons that no one relates . . . 
Weekenders avid of their turf-won scores, 
Here three hours from the semaphores, the Czars 
Of golf, by twos and threes in plaid plusfours 
Alight with sticks abristle and cigars. 


This was the Promised Land, and still it is 
To the persuasive suburban land agent 
In bootleg roadhouses where the gin fizz 
Bubbles in time to Hollywood’s new love-nest pageant. 
Fresh from the radio in the old Meeting House 
(Now the New Avalon Hotel) volcanoes roar 
A welcome to highsteppers that no mouse 
Who saw the Friends there ever heard before. 


What cunning neighbors history has in fine! 
The woodlouse mortgages the ancient deal 
Table that Powitzky buys for only nine- 
Ty-five at Adams’ auction,—eats the seal, 
The spinster polish of antiquity . . . 
Who holds the lease on time and on disgrace? 
What eats the pattern with ubiquity? 
Where are my kinsmen and the patriarch race? 


The resigned factions of the dead preside. 
Dead rangers bled their comfort on the snow; 
But I must ask slain Iroquois to guide 
Me farther than scalped Yankees knew to go: 
Shoulder the curse of sundered parentage, 
Wait for the postman driving from Birch Hill 
With birthright by blackmail, the arrant page 
That unfolds a new destiny to fill . . . . 


So, must we from the hawk’s far stemming view, 
Must we descend as worm’s eye to construe 
Our love of all we touch, and take it to the Gate 
As humbly as a guest who knows himself too late, 
His news already told? Yes, while the heart is wrung, 
Arise—yes, take this sheaf of dust upon your tongue! 
In one last angelus lift throbbing throat— 
Listen, transmuting silence with that stilly note 


Of pain that Emily, that Isadora knew! 
While high from dim elm-chancels hung with dew, 
That triple-noted clause of moonlight— 
Yes, whip-poor-will, unhusks the heart of fright, 
Breaks us and saves, yes, breaks the heart, yet yields 
That patience that is armour and that shields 
Love from despair—when love forsees the end— 
Leaf after autumnal leaf 
break off, 
descend— 
descend—
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