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.