An Unpublished Hart Crane Poem
 

While searching among the Hart Crane Papers in the Columbia
University Libraries for materials which would contribute to a
critical biography of the poet, the late Jethro Robinson came on
the following early, hitherto unpublished poem.. Written when
Crane was sixteen, the little fable which the poem recites seemed
to Mr. Robinson to be a significant revelation of the young poet's
humble aspiration and a portent of what he was more successfully
to accomplish in the future. In fact, Mr. Robinson had tentatively
titled the first section of his study "The Moth That God Made
Blind." The drafts of Mr. Robinson's uncompleted work, his
notes and outlines, and his correspondence with friends and rela¬
tives of the poet have been presented to the Columbia University
Library as "The Jethro Robinson Addenda to the Hart Crane
Papers". — Lewis Leary.
 

THE MOTH THAT GOD MADE BLIND

Among cocoa-nut palms of a far oasis.
Conceived in the light of Arabian moons,
There are butterflies born in mosaic date-vases.
That emerge black and vermeil from yellow cocoons.

Some say that for sweetness they cannot see far, —
That their land is too gorgeous to free their eyes wide
To horizons which knife-like would only mar
Their joy with a barren and steely tide —

That they only can see when their moon limits vision.
Their mother, the moon, marks a halo of light
On their own small oasis, ray-cut, an incision.
Where are set all the myriad jeweleries of night.

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