Robinson Jeffers

Birth

Joy is a trick in the air; pleasure is merely
    contemptible, the dangled
Carrot the ass follows to market or precipice;
But limitary pain—the rock under the tower
    and the hewn coping
That takes thunder at the head of the turret–
Terrible and real. Therefore a mindless dervish
    carving himself
With knives will seem to have conquered the world.
 
 
The world’s God is treacherous and full of
    unreason; a torturer, but also
The only foundation and the only fountain.
Who fights him eats his own flesh and perishes
    of hunger; who hides in the grave
To escape him is dead; who enters the Indian
Recession to escape him is dead; who falls in
    love with the God is washed clean
Of death desired and of death dreaded.
 
 
He has joy, but Joy is a trick in the air; and
    pleasure, but pleasure is contemptible;
And peace; and is based on solider than pain.
He has broken boundaries a little and that will
estrange him; he is monstrous, but not
To the measure of the God.... But I having told
    you—
However I suppose that few in the world have
    energy to hear effectively–
Have paid my birth-dues; am quits with the
    people.
Other works by Robinson Jeffers...



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