Robinson Jeffers(1887–1962)

Shine, Perishing Republic

While this America settles in the mold of its vulgarity, heavily

thickening to empire,

And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out,

and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit

rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and

decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it

stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:

Shine, Perishing Republic

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the

thickening center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet

there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever

servant, insufferable master.

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught—they say—

God, when he walked on earth.