Bibliographic Information Author Crane, Hart Genre Poetry Journal or Book The Collected Poems of Hart Crane Publisher Liveright Publishing Corporation Year of Publication 1933 Pages 49-54 Additional information - To Find the Western path Right thro' the Gates of Wrath —Blake Performances, assortments, résumés— Up Times Square to Columbus Circle lights Channel the congresses, nightly sessions, Refractions of the thousand theatres, faces— Mysterious kitchens.... You shall search them all. Some day by heart you’ll learn each famous sight And watch the curtain lift in hell’s despite; You’ll find the garden in the third act dead, Finger your knees—and wish yourself in bed With tabloid crime-sheets perched in easy sight. infrastructure Then let you reach your hat and go. As usual, let you—also walking down—exclaim to twelve upward leaving a subscription praise for what time slays. Or can’t you quite make up your mind to ride; A walk is better underneath the L a brisk Ten blocks or so before? But you find yourself Preparing penguin flexions of the arms,— As usual you will meet the scuttle yawn: The subway yawns the quickest promise home. train Be minimum, then, to swim the hiving swarms Out of the Square, the Circle burning bright— Avoid the glass doors gyring at your right, Where boxed alone a second, eyes take fright —Quite unprepared rush naked back to light: And down beside the turnstile press the coin Into the slot. The gongs already rattle. And so of cities you bespeak subways, rivered under streets and rivers.... In the car the overtone of motion underground, the monotone of motion is the sound of other faces, also underground— train “Let’s have a pencil Jimmy—living now at Floral Park Flatbush—on the Fourth of July— like a pigeon’s muddy dream—potatoes to dig in the field—travlin the town—too— night after night—the Culver line—the girls all shaping up—it used to be—” Our tongues recant like beaten weather vanes. This answer lives like verdigris, like hair Beyond extinction, surcease of the bone; And repetition freezes—“What “what do you want? getting weak on the links? fandaddle daddy don’t ask for change—IS THIS FOURTEENTH? it’s half past six she said—if you don’t like my gate why did you swing on it, why didja swing on it anyhow—” And somehow anyhow swing— The phonographs of hades in the brain Are tunnels that re-wind themselves, and love A burnt match skating in a urinal— Somewhere above Fourteenth TAKE THE EXPRESS To brush some new presentiment of pain— “But I want service in this office SERVICE I said—after the show she cried a little afterwards but—” Whose head is swinging from the swollen strap? Whose body smokes along the bitten rails, Bursts from a smoldering bundle far behind In back forks of the chasms of the brain,— Puffs from a riven stump far out behind In interborough fissures of the mind...? And why do I often meet your visage here, Your eyes like agate lanterns—on and on Below the toothpaste and the dandruff ads? —And did their riding eyes right through your side, And did their eyes like unwashed platters ride? And Death, aloft,—gigantically down Probing through you—toward me, O evermore! And when they dragged your retching flesh, Your trembling hands that night through Baltimore— That last night on the ballot rounds, did you Shaking, did you deny the ticket, Poe? For Gravesend Manor change at Chambers Street. The platform hurries along to a dead stop. The intent escalator lifts a serenade Stilly Of shoes, umbrellas, each eye attending its shoe, then Bolting outright somewhere above where streets Burst suddenly in rain.... The gongs recur: Elbows and levers, guard and hissing door. Thunder is galvothermic here below.... The car Wheels off. The train rounds, bending to a scream, Taking the final level for the dive Under the river— And somewhat emptier than before, Demented, for a hitching second, humps; then Lets go.... Toward corners of the floor Newspapers wing, revolve and wing. Blank windows gargle signals through the roar. anthropomorphism car metaphor sound road weather thunder train And does the Daemon take you home, also, Wop washerwoman, with the bandaged hair? After the corridors are swept, the cuspidors— The gaunt sky-barracks cleanly now, and bare, O Genoese, do you bring mother eyes and hands Back home to children and to golden hair? Daemon, demurring and eventful yawn! Whose hideous laughter is a bellows mirth —Or the muffled slaughter of a day in birth— O cruelly to inoculate the brinking dawn With antennae toward worlds that glow and sink;— To spoon us out more liquid than the dim Locution of the eldest star, and pack The conscience navelled in the plunging wind, Umbilical to call—and straightway die! O caught like pennies beneath soot and steam, Kiss of our agony thou gatherest; Condensed, thou takest all—shrill ganglia Impassioned with some song we fail to keep. And yet, like Lazarus, to feel the slope, The sod and billow breaking,—lifting ground, —A sound of waters bending astride the sky Unceasing with some Word that will not die...! * A tugboat, wheezing wreaths of steam, Lunged past, with one galvanic blare stove up the River. I counted the echoes assembling, one after one, Searching, thumbing the midnight on the piers. Lights, coasting, left the oily tympanum of waters; The blackness somewhere gouged glass on a sky. And this thy harbor, O my City, I have driven under, Tossed from the coil of ticking towers.... Tomorrow, And to be.... Hereby the River that is East— Here at the waters’ edge the hands drop memory; Shadowless in that abyss they unaccounting lie. How far away the star has pooled the sea— Or shall the hands be drawn away, to die? driving infrastructure pollution ocean river urban city Kiss of our agony Thou gatherest, O Hand of Fire gatherest—
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# QUERY6e5913628220db1fc25290c0a366a4fb
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# ERR9d760f30b61a3a82f02ea47777882557
To Find the Western path Right thro' the Gates of Wrath —Blake
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# ce6ae7795c0b59d14879d88a330ffb85
“Let’s have a pencil Jimmy—living now at Floral Park Flatbush—on the Fourth of July— like a pigeon’s muddy dream—potatoes to dig in the field—travlin the town—too— night after night—the Culver line—the girls all shaping up—it used to be—”
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 639c11acaad2f157ade346e793a4bf92
Our tongues recant like beaten weather vanes. This answer lives like verdigris, like hair Beyond extinction, surcease of the bone; And repetition freezes—“What
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# f2d3b0ffa41454ffbb8484fb3f10a85e
“what do you want? getting weak on the links? fandaddle daddy don’t ask for change—IS THIS FOURTEENTH? it’s half past six she said—if you don’t like my gate why did you swing on it, why didja swing on it anyhow—”
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# b855b18f95351400ae9b7d710e4db586
And somehow anyhow swing—
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# c547ebf9f01160b21d3dc8f8bd162184
“But I want service in this office SERVICE I said—after the show she cried a little afterwards but—”
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 6e80de822196acfe0ff34693af1db05c
Whose head is swinging from the swollen strap? Whose body smokes along the bitten rails, Bursts from a smoldering bundle far behind In back forks of the chasms of the brain,— Puffs from a riven stump far out behind In interborough fissures of the mind...?
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 51b1d8046bb4103e6e6d2ff722684aea
For Gravesend Manor change at Chambers Street. The platform hurries along to a dead stop.
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# d97fb71b4ab5bfac6b81749f567f8557
And does the Daemon take you home, also, Wop washerwoman, with the bandaged hair? After the corridors are swept, the cuspidors— The gaunt sky-barracks cleanly now, and bare, O Genoese, do you bring mother eyes and hands Back home to children and to golden hair?
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 7f155235ff6b6ee1aea621a528b9c37b
Daemon, demurring and eventful yawn! Whose hideous laughter is a bellows mirth —Or the muffled slaughter of a day in birth— O cruelly to inoculate the brinking dawn With antennae toward worlds that glow and sink;— To spoon us out more liquid than the dim Locution of the eldest star, and pack The conscience navelled in the plunging wind, Umbilical to call—and straightway die!
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 7c8e53b269f7adb55a16f85a576aecc6
O caught like pennies beneath soot and steam, Kiss of our agony thou gatherest; Condensed, thou takest all—shrill ganglia Impassioned with some song we fail to keep. And yet, like Lazarus, to feel the slope, The sod and billow breaking,—lifting ground, —A sound of waters bending astride the sky Unceasing with some Word that will not die...!
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# c42bc615dda2bc77d1a739560f38721f
Kiss of our agony Thou gatherest, O Hand of Fire gatherest—
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 725512dd36aa7f6fe2b4e7d56d9c9647
Performances, assortments, résumés— Up Times Square to Columbus Circle lights Channel the congresses, nightly sessions, Refractions of the thousand theatres, faces— Mysterious kitchens.... You shall search them all. Some day by heart you’ll learn each famous sight And watch the curtain lift in hell’s despite; You’ll find the garden in the third act dead, Finger your knees—and wish yourself in bed With tabloid crime-sheets perched in easy sight.
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# ad6ae5af6defe3ded18bb5fb1b84c7e5
Then let you reach your hat and go. As usual, let you—also walking down—exclaim to twelve upward leaving a subscription praise for what time slays.
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# b7954349c8893c675e57da875d9d06c3
Or can’t you quite make up your mind to ride; A walk is better underneath the L a brisk Ten blocks or so before? But you find yourself Preparing penguin flexions of the arms,— As usual you will meet the scuttle yawn: The subway yawns the quickest promise home.
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 029fd1ed21964724544e4458ebbcef2b
Be minimum, then, to swim the hiving swarms Out of the Square, the Circle burning bright— Avoid the glass doors gyring at your right, Where boxed alone a second, eyes take fright —Quite unprepared rush naked back to light: And down beside the turnstile press the coin Into the slot. The gongs already rattle.
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 15b6af2f7db6497cc895cac4d77a18d0
And so of cities you bespeak subways, rivered under streets and rivers.... In the car the overtone of motion underground, the monotone of motion is the sound of other faces, also underground—
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 77493f36d4a07fc339c6ff04bf33be2e
The phonographs of hades in the brain Are tunnels that re-wind themselves, and love A burnt match skating in a urinal— Somewhere above Fourteenth TAKE THE EXPRESS To brush some new presentiment of pain—
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 86a00a52258e2d0d27198c9ea9c2fcb1
And why do I often meet your visage here, Your eyes like agate lanterns—on and on Below the toothpaste and the dandruff ads? —And did their riding eyes right through your side, And did their eyes like unwashed platters ride? And Death, aloft,—gigantically down Probing through you—toward me, O evermore! And when they dragged your retching flesh, Your trembling hands that night through Baltimore— That last night on the ballot rounds, did you Shaking, did you deny the ticket, Poe?
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# e7984391354de33219eac4efda48a934
The intent escalator lifts a serenade Stilly Of shoes, umbrellas, each eye attending its shoe, then Bolting outright somewhere above where streets Burst suddenly in rain.... The gongs recur: Elbows and levers, guard and hissing door. Thunder is galvothermic here below.... The car Wheels off. The train rounds, bending to a scream, Taking the final level for the dive Under the river— And somewhat emptier than before, Demented, for a hitching second, humps; then Lets go.... Toward corners of the floor Newspapers wing, revolve and wing. Blank windows gargle signals through the roar.
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 74db40c83db4a4af43bda852a25b4621
A tugboat, wheezing wreaths of steam, Lunged past, with one galvanic blare stove up the River. I counted the echoes assembling, one after one, Searching, thumbing the midnight on the piers. Lights, coasting, left the oily tympanum of waters; The blackness somewhere gouged glass on a sky. And this thy harbor, O my City, I have driven under, Tossed from the coil of ticking towers.... Tomorrow, And to be.... Hereby the River that is East— Here at the waters’ edge the hands drop memory; Shadowless in that abyss they unaccounting lie. How far away the star has pooled the sea— Or shall the hands be drawn away, to die?
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 898d0a47528b19c589785babf7b6eeb4
The Bridge: VII The Tunnel# 9f7d4c952fe7184f1018ee91b6c89820