Monday, November 24, 2014

To the Stone-Cutters, Robinson Jeffers

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore defeated 
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 well 
Builds his monument mockingly; 
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun 
Die blind and blacken to the heart: 
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found 
The honey of peace in old poems.

from Tamar and Other Poems, 1924

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