Stephen Crane, 1871-1900
A man adrift on a slim spar
A horizon smaller than the rim of a bottle
Tented waves rearing lashing dark points
The near whine of froth in circles,
God is cold.
The incessant raise and swing of the sea
And growl after growl of crest
The sinkings, green, seething, endless
The upheaval half-completed.
God is cold.
The seas are in the hollow of The Hand;
Oceans may be turned to a spray
Raining down through the stars
Because of a gesture of pity toward a babe.
Oceans may become grey ashes,
Die with a long moan and a roar
Amid the tumult of the fishes
And the cries of the ships,
Because The Hand beckons the mice.
A horizon smaller than a doomed assassin’s cap,
Inky, surging tumults
A reeling, drunken sky and no sky
A pale hand sliding from a polished spar.
God is cold.
The puff of a coat imprisoning air:
A face kissing the water-death
A weary slow sway of a lost hand
And the sea, the moving sea, the sea.
God is cold.
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Ohhh… this is really good… It’s sort of hard for me to savor how dark this is though because I’m in a pretty peppy mood right now… But this is very powerful…. sounds like the last throws of death, dying at sea, sunken ship… but powerful words… ” i like the short phrase…”Because The Hand beckons the mice.” I get the meaning of “God is cold”… in the context.. but disagree with it on principle for personal reasons.. except when I’m in a black mood of my own.Except for when I feel a bit weathered by life… I think the Universe is a very warm and generous place… mostly because of the people I know in it.Not cold and unfeeling.
This I assume is based on his life experience from looking at his bio…Is this from his book The Open Boat” ? Or from a collection of poetry. Sometimes you say where it is from. I don’t see anything above.
Thanks, Chris. “Because The Hand beckons the mice” is probably my favorite line.
I was unable to determine where exactly this was originally published. I’ve not yet read The Open Boat, though that seems like a reasonable guess. I have it in a slim hardbound volume (edited by Wilson Follett and published by Knopf in 1973) called The Collected Poems of Stephen Crane.