But perish it will because of the “vulgarity” and “corruption” eating away at its core. Those hastening civilization are just hastening civilization’s final demise: “You making haste haste on decay.” Citizens are helpless to stop the process of empire building, and protest is ultimately ineffective: “protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out.”īut life can still be good, the empire can still shine while it is perishing. The fate of all republics was to become an empire, and all empires are born, flower and eventually decay, whether the process is fast or slow. ![]() War meant that America had finally turned its back on its Jeffersonian inheritance and thrown its weight behind the Hamiltonian centralists who saw in empire the ultimate justification for American exceptionalism. Jeffers saw America’s intervention in World War I for what it was, a momentous decision that would seal the fate of the republic for centuries to come. While kindness and need were high priorities in our relationships with each other, Jeffers believed humanity’s ultimate allegiance was to the permanent things in life “the vast life and inexhaustible beauty beyond creation.” Pollution, violence and the destruction of species were all the result of man’s inability to limit his urge for self-importance. Jeffers viewed humanity as being just one part of creation, and not necessarily the most important. In his time, isolationist and antiwar, he is best remembered today as the high priest of the environmentalist movement. Jeffers still commands a strong general readership and academia continues to ignore him (always a good sign), possibly because he wrote about big ideas on subjects of great importance that challenged academics not just in style but in substance. “Read this”, he had said, “You’ll enjoy Jeffers.” The augurs were good. Trapped for a few days over Christmas in Yosemite, while a major snow storm downed trees and made travel hazardous, I found myself alone with some books by the poet Robinson Jeffers, lent to me by a friend. They say God, when he walked on Earth.” There is a trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught Monster’s feet there are left the mountains.Īnd boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man. Never has been compulsory, when the cities lies at the Is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenlyĪ mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less thanīut for my children, I would have them keep their distance ![]() You making haste, haste on decay: not blameworthy life Ripeness and decadence and home to the mother. Out of the mother and through the spring exultances, ![]() I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make Happy ending? We think not.“While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarityĪnd protest, only a bubble in the Molten Mass, pops He then reminds the boys not to get caught up in the whole love of mankind thing because man ain't nothing but an "insufferable master." If the kids do decide to get tangled up in the mess, the speaker warns them that they'd be doing what other noble spirits have done (like God) who walked the earth and got caught in the trap, only to suffer and die. After all, when the cities are laid to waste, those mountains remain. Life is good and all things must pass." But there is a glimmer of hope when he tells the republic to shine on despite the decay.Īs far as his children are concerned, he'd prefer to keep them out of the whole mess, maybe hide them out in the mountains someplace where it's safe from the monster that is the decaying empire of America. He then looks to the actual people that are causing the decay and says, "Hey, I don't blame you. And just like every other empire, this one will decay like a fruit to (metaphorically) return to mother earth and begin the cycle all over again. The speaker starts off right away by letting us know that he's specifically talking about America as a perishing republic that's going to rot because it's become too much of an empire.
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