Poem by Robinson Jeffers

Contrast

  The world has many seas, Mediterranean, Atlantic, but
         here is the shore of the one ocean.
  And here the heavy future hangs like a cloud; the
         enormous scene; the enormous games preparing
  Weigh on the water and strain the rock; the stage is here,
           the play is conceived; the players are not found.

  I saw on the Sierras, up the Kaweah valley above the
           Moro rock, the mountain redwoods
  Like red towers on the slopes of snow; about their bases
           grew a bushy of Christmas green,
  Firs and pines to be monuments for pilgrimage
  In Europe; I remembered the Swiss forests, the dark robes
           of Pilatus, no trunk like these there;
  But these are underwood; they are only a shrubbery
           about the boles of the trees

                          Our people are clever and masterful;
  They have powers in the mass, they accomplish marvels.
         It is possible Time will make them before it a annuls
         them, but at present
  There is not one memorable person, there is not one mind
        to stand with the trees, one life with the mountains.

1. October Evening
2. The Day Is a Poem (September 19, 1939)
3. To Helen about Her Hair
4. Joy
5. Song of Quietness

Emily Dickinson Contrast ("A door just opened on a street")

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