Robinson Jeffers

When I was young in school in Switzerland, about the time of the Boer War, We used to take it for known that the human race Would last the earth out, not dying till

I When I considered it too closely, when I wore it like an element and smelt it like water, Life is become less lovely, the net nearer than the skin, a little troublesome, a

To be an ape in little of the mountain-making mother Like swarthy Cheops, but my own hands For only slaves, is a far sweeter toil than to cut Passions in verse for a sick

The universe expands and contracts like a great heart. It is expanding, the farthest nebulae Rush with the speed of light into empty space. It will contract, the immense navies of stars and galaxies,

I followed the narrow cliffside trail half way up the mountain Above the deep river-canyon. There was a little cataract crossed the path, flinging itself Over tree roots and rocks, shaking the jeweled fern-fronds,

If you should look for this place after a handful of lifetimes: Perhaps of my planted forest a few May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast cypress, haggard With storm-drift; but fire and

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down, The square-limbed Roman letters Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as

Beyond the great valley an odd instinctive rising Begins to possess the ground, the flatness gathers to little humps and Barrows, low aimless ridges, A sudden violence of rock crowns them. The crowded orchards

A little too abstract, a little too wise, It is time for us to kiss the earth again, It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies, Let the rich life run

That public men publish falsehoods Is nothing new. That America must accept Like the historical republics corruption and empire Has been known for years. Be angry at the sun for setting If these things

The heads of strong old age are beautiful Beyond all grace of youth. They have strange quiet, Integrity, health, soundness, to the full They’ve dealt with life and been tempered by it. A young

The old voice of the ocean, the bird-chatter of little rivers, (Winter has given them gold for silver To stain their water and bladed green for brown to line their banks) >From different throats

We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were Slipped in. We have levelled the powers Of Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and Dependence. We

I am heaping the bones of the old mother To build us a hold against the host of the air; Granite the blood-heat of her youth Held molten in hot darkness against the heart

Guard yourself from the terrible empty light of space, the bottomless Pool of the stars. (Expose yourself to it: you might learn something.) Guard yourself from perceiving the inherent nastiness of man and woman.

Wise men in their bad hours have envied The little people making merry like grasshoppers In spots of sunlight, hardly thinking Backward but never forward, and if they somehow Take hold upon the future

This country least, but every inhabited country Is clotted with human anguish. Remember that at your feasts. And this is no new thing but from time out of mind, No transient thing, but exactly

The mad girl with the staring eyes and long white fingers Hooked in the stones of the wall, The storm-wrack hair and screeching mouth: does it matter, Cassandra, Whether the people believe Your bitter

No bitterness: our ancestors did it. They were only ignorant and hopeful, they wanted freedom but wealth too. Their children will learn to hope for a Caesar. Or rather for we are not aquiline

I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling high up in heaven, And presently it passed again,

When the sun shouts and people abound One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze And the iron age; iron the unstable metal; Steel made of iron, unstable as

There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky, She killed the pigeons of peace and security, She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men, She is hunting

The little biplane that has the river-meadow for landing-field And carries passengers brief rides, Buzzed overhead on the tender blue above the orange of sundown. Below it five troubled night-herons Turned short over the

If God has been good enough to give you a poet Then listen to him. But for God’s sake let him alone until he is dead; No prizes, no ceremony, They kill the man.

I chose the bed downstairs by the sea-window for a good death-bed When we built the house, it is ready waiting, Unused unless by some guest in a twelvemonth, who hardly suspects Its latter

“I hate my verses, every line, every word. Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky. Oh

Unhappy about some far off things That are not my affair, wandering Along the coast and up the lean ridges, I saw in the evening The stars go over the lonely ocean, And a

The old woman sits on a bench before the door and quarrels With her meagre pale demoralized daughter. Once when I passed I found her alone, laughing in the sun And saying that when

Civilized, crying: how to be human again; this will tell you how. Turn outward, love things, not men, turn right away from humanity, Let that doll lie. Consider if you like how the lilies