Robinson Jeffers(1887–1962)
Birds and Fishes
Every October millions of little fish come along the shore,
Coasting this granite edge of the continent
On their lawful occasions: but what a festival for the sea-fowl.
What a witches' sabbath4 of wings
Hides the dark water. The heavy pelicans shout "Haw! like Job's
friend's warhorse 5
And dive from the high air, the cormorants6
Slip their long black bodies under the water and hunt like wolves
Through the green half-light. Screaming, the gulls watch,
Wild with envy and malice, cursing and snatching. What hysterical
greed!
What a filling of pouches! the mob
Hysteria is nearly human—these decent birds!—as if they were finding
Gold in the street. It is better than gold,
It can be eaten: and which one in all this fury of wild-fowl pities the
fish
No one certainly. Justice and mercy
Are human dreams, they do not concern the birds nor the fish nor
eternal God.
However—look again before you go.
The wings and wild hungers, the wave-worn skerries,reefs
the bright quick minnows
Living in terror to die in torment—
Man's fate and theirs—and the island rocks and immense ocean
beyond, and Lobos7
Darkening above the bay: they are beautiful
That is their quality: not mercy, not mind, not goodness, but the
beauty of God.8