Tuesday, January 3, 2012

"foredefeated challengers of oblivion"

























Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.


"To The Stone-Cutters" by Robinson Jeffers


Ruine Heisterbach im Siebengebirge, Anton Schiffer (1811-1876)

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