Interlinear Readings of The Bridge (2)

Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge (s. 2)

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
Here inviolate curve has a distant echo in the last line of the Proem: of the curveship lend a myth to God.

As apparitional as sails that cross
Note that there is no English verb that signifies the mode of appearing and disappearing as implied by the word apparitional; cf. "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough." (Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Métro"); for the discussion of this word, refer to Alex Rodger, "Language for Literature," Teaching Literature Overseas: Language-Based Apoproaches, Pergamon Press and the British Council, 1983. Note that seagull's wings and sails are both white.

Some page of figures to be filed away;
to be filed away suggests a businessman, presumably working in Wall Street (cf. Wall in s. 6), is going to finish his job with financial papers before long.

--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .
Finally we finish our day's work. drop is a strong word semantically, and has here an effect reminding one of the sense of release and relief. It may be a distant echo of dip in s. 1; if so, the seagull's descent and ascent is paralleled by a man's drop in an elevator and flight of imagination in a cinama (s. 3).


This is an interlinear reading of Hart Crane's The Bridge by Eiichi Hishikawa. Copyright (c) 1996 Eiichi Hishikawa.
The source of Crane texts is The Bridge (NY: Liveright, 1970). Copyright (c) 1933, 1958, 1970 Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Last updated: 31 October, 1996
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