The version of _Recitative_ enclosed in a letter to Gorham Munson dated December 10, 1923, is more highly developed than this, and is essentially the same as that which appeared in the spring, 1924, issue of _The Little Review_.* The date of this version of _Recitative_ must, therefore, fall prior to December 10, 1923. Arna Bontemps notes that the folding of _Recitative_ resembles that of the letter beginning "I longed for a talk with you" written in August or September, 1923. Crane's first mention of _Recitative_, however, comes a month later at least in a letter to Gorham Munson dated October 18, 1923 -

> I wrote a _Recitative_ the other night which Jean & Waldo think among my best poems. If I don't get time to enclose it here you will get a copy soon anyway.

It is possible that the version stapled to this note is the early version of _Recitative_, mentioned in the letter quoted here, which Crane showed to Jean Toomer. This version probably dates around October 18, 1923; there is no letter to Toomer with which it matches exactly.

*see letter 167 in *The Letters of Hart Crane*, edited by Brom Weber, and p. 224 of Weber's *Hart Crane: A Biographical and Critical Study*.

August or September [?], 1923, version

Recitative

Look at me here, O Janus-faced . . .
These eyes have crashed your double glass:
My eyes at search or rest you cannot bear;
My eyes at pain and glee you cannot see!

O shadowed halves, - the second's glancing holds
Only the skin in both, and so it is
I am a plate of vacant and cracked mercury
Borne cleft to you, and brother in the half.

Resist this fragmentary smile: deny
Its drums and darkest blowing leaves,
-- and yet absorb its tears, the gayest
For ancient mercy and the common stye . . .

The alternating bells, - have you not heard,
And all hours clapped into a single stride?
Forgive me for an echo of these things,
And walk, yourselves, I beg, in equal pride.

December 10, 1923, version

Recitative

Regard the capture here, O Janus-faced--
As double as the hands that crash this glass:
Such eyes at search or rest you cannot see--
Reciting pain and glee, you cannot bear.

Twin shadowed halves: the second's glancing holds
In each the skin alone, and so it is
I crust a plate of vibrant mercury
Borne cleft to you, and brother in the half.

Resist this much-exacting fragment smile,
Its drums and darkest blowing leaves decline
In favor, only, of your tears--reserved
Communicant to greet an ancient sign. . .

In alternate bells have you not heard
All hours clapped dense into a single stride?
Forgive me for an echo of these things,
And walk through Time, yourselves, in equal pride.