"meteors are not needed less than mountains"

While this America settles in the mould 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.

From "Shine, Perishing Republic" by Robinson Jeffers. Read the complete poem (with the correct line breaks)* here.


Still Life with a Skull, Paul Cézanne, 1895-1900.


*A pox on Blogger and its persnickety template.