Hart Crane

The Broken Tower

As flings the question true?) -or is it she

Whose sweet mortality stirs latent power?-

 

And through whose pulse I hear, counting the strokes

My veins recall and add, revived and sure

The angelus of wars my chest evokes:

What I hold healed, original now, and pure…

 

And builds, within, a tower that is not stone

(Not stone can jacket heaven) - but slip

Of pebbles, - visible wings of silence sown

In azure circles, widening as they dip

 

The matrix of the heart, lift down the eye

That shrines the quiet lake and swells a tower…

The commodious, tall decorum of that sky

Unseals her earth, and lifts love in its shower.