Infinite consanguinity it bears —

Infinite consanguinity it bears —
This tendered theme of you that light   
Retrieves from sea plains where the sky   
Resigns a breast that every wave enthrones;   
While ribboned water lanes I wind
Are laved and scattered with no stroke   
Wide from your side, whereto this hour   
The sea lifts, also, reliquary hands.

And so, admitted through black swollen gates   
That must arrest all distance otherwise, —
Past whirling pillars and lithe pediments,   
Light wrestling there incessantly with light,   
Star kissing star through wave on wave unto   
Your body rocking!
                            and where death, if shed,   
Presumes no carnage, but this single change, —
Upon the steep floor flung from dawn to dawn   
The silken skilled transmemberment of song;

Permit me voyage, love, into your hands ...

About the headline (FAQ)

Authorship

• by (Harold) Hart Crane (1899 - 1932), no title, appears in White Buildings, in Voyages, no. 3, 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)

• by Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (1908 - 2012), "Voyage", published 1945. [high voice and piano] [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]

Text added to the website: 2019-01-10.
Last modified: 2019-01-10 18:01:34
Line count: 19
Word count: 125

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