by Marianne Moore
July 2, 1966
Enfranchising cable, silvered by the sea,
of woven wire, grayed by the mist,
and Liberty dominate the Bay—
her feet as one on shattered chains,
once whole links wrought by Tyranny.
Caged Circe of steel and stone,
her parent German ingenuity.
“O catenary curve” from tower to pier,
implacable enemy of the mind’s deformity,
of man’s uncompunctious greed,
his crass love of crass priority,
just recently
obstructing acquiescent feet
about to step ashore when darkness fell
without a cause,
as if probity had not joined our cities
in the sea.
“O path amid the stars
crossed by the seagull’s wing!”
“O radiance that doth inherit me!”
—affirming inter-acting harmony!
Untried expedient, untried; then tried;
sublime elliptic two-fold egg—
way out; way in; romantic passageway
first seen by the eye of the mind,
then by the eye. O steel! O stone!
Climactic ornament, double rainbow,
as if inverted by French perspicacity
John Roebling’s monument,
German tenacity’s also;
composite span—an actuality.
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