Whose counted smile of hours and days,...

Whose counted smile of hours and days, suppose   
I know as spectrum of the sea and pledge   
Vastly now parting gulf on gulf of wings
Whose circles bridge, I know, (from palms to the severe   
Chilled albatross’s white immutability)   
No stream of greater love advancing now   
Than, singing, this mortality alone   
Through clay aflow immortally to you.

All fragrance irrefragably, and claim   
Madly meeting logically in this hour   
And region that is ours to wreathe again,   
Portending eyes and lips and making told   
The chancel port and portion of our June —

Shall they not stem and close in our own steps   
Bright staves of flowers and quills today as I   
Must first be lost in fatal tides to tell?

In signature of the incarnate word
The harbor shoulders to resign in mingling
Mutual blood, transpiring as foreknown
And widening noon within your breast for gathering   
All bright insinuations that my years have caught   
For islands where must lead inviolably
Blue latitudes and levels of your eyes, —

In this expectant, still exclaim receive   
The secret oar and petals of all love.

About the headline (FAQ)

Authorship

• by (Harold) Hart Crane (1899 - 1932), no title, appears in White Buildings, in Voyages, no. 4, first published 1926 [ author's text checked 1 time]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

[ None yet in the database ]

Text added to the website: 2019-01-10.
Last modified: 2019-01-10 18:05:58
Line count: 25
Word count: 182

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project, and I have been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your gift is greatly appreciated.      - Emily Ezust

Browse imslp.org (Petrucci Music Library) for Lieder or choral works