Robinson Jeffers
Robinson Jeffers
John Robinson Jefferswas an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Much of Jeffers' poetry was written in narrative and epic form, but he is also known for his shorter verse and is considered an icon of the environmental movement. Influential and highly regarded in some circles, despite or because of his philosophy of "inhumanism," Jeffers believed that transcending conflict required human concerns to be de-emphasized in favor of the boundless whole. This led him to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth10 January 1887
CityPittsburgh, PA
CountryUnited States of America
Death's a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made / Something more equal to the centuries / Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.
If millions are born millions must die.
Truly men hate the truth; they'd liefer meet a tiger on the road.
Does it matter whether you hate yourself? At least love your eyes that can see, your mind that can hear the music, the thunder of the wings.
And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom. You did not say "en masse," you said "independence." But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also.
...[K]now that however ugly the parts appear the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand Is an ugly thing, and man dissevered from the earth and stars and his history... for contemplation or in fact... Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe....
The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.
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 the axe are devils. Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers had the art To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
The heads of strong old age are beautiful beyond all grace of youth.
O that our souls could scale a height like this, A mighty mountain swept o'er by the bleak Keen winds of heaven; and, standing on that peak Above the blinding clouds of prejudice, Would we could see all truly as it is; The calm eternal truth would keep us meek.
This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.
There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that cultures decay, and life's end is death.
Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment, they have had what they wanted.
The cold passion for truth hunts in no pack.