Robinson Jeffers

I've changed my ways a little, I cannot now

— Robinson Jeffers

O that our souls could scale a height like this, The calm eternal truth would keep us meek.

— Robinson Jeffers

At the equinox when the earth was veiled in a late rain, wreathed with wet poppies, waiting spring Mountain and plain, the immense breadth of the continent, before me the mass and double stretch of water.

— Robinson Jeffers

The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me

— Robinson Jeffers

The long migrations meet across you and it is nothing to you, you have forgotten us, mother. Your mobile soft unquiet strength; and envies hardness, the insolent quietness of stone.

— Robinson Jeffers

I've changed my ways a little, I cannot now

— Robinson Jeffers

The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.

— Robinson Jeffers

Mother, though my song's measure is like your surf-beat's ancient rhythm I never learned it of you. Before there was any water there were tides of fire, both our tones flow from the older fountain.

— Robinson Jeffers

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore-defeatedScale in the thaws, wear in the rain.

— Robinson Jeffers

Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment,they have had what they wanted

— Robinson Jeffers

I have seen these ways of God: I know of no reason For fire and change and torture and the old returnings.

— Robinson Jeffers

I hate my verses, every line, every word. One color, one glinting flash, of the splendor of things.

— Robinson Jeffers

This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game. Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan.

— Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which Watch their own eyes.

— Robinson Jeffers

I think, here is your emblem Nor success make proud.

— Robinson Jeffers

Then what is the answer? — Not to be deluded by dreams. By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will not be fulfilled.

— Robinson Jeffers

There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that cultures decay, and life's end is death.

— Robinson Jeffers

You ask what I am for and what I am against in Spain. I would give my right hand of course to prevent the agony; I would not give a flick of my little finger to help either side win.

— Robinson Jeffers

Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide. In the sense of a symbol.

— Robinson Jeffers

Dear God, who are the whole splendor of things and the sacred To praise you with a whole heart.

— Robinson Jeffers

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

— Robinson Jeffers

Meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.

— Robinson Jeffers

Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.

— Robinson Jeffers

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, God, when he walked on earth.

— Robinson Jeffers

Imagination, the traitor of the mind, has taken my solitude and slain it.

— Robinson Jeffers

The world's in a bad way, my man, While the stars go over the lonely ocean...

— Robinson Jeffers

Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.

— Robinson Jeffers

That public men publish falsehoodsIf these things anger you.

— Robinson Jeffers

The gang serves lies, the passionateHunts in no pack.

— Robinson Jeffers

I will have shepherds for my philosophers,Best told by fools.

— Robinson Jeffers

No one but death the redeemer will humble that head.

— Robinson Jeffers

Science and mathematicsIf any mind for a moment touch truth.

— Robinson Jeffers

Poetry is bound to concern itself chiefly with permanent aspects of life.

— Robinson Jeffers

I decided not to tell lies in verse. Not to feign any emotions that I did not feel.

— Robinson Jeffers

The extraordinary patience of things! No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing...

— Robinson Jeffers

Against the outcrop boulders of a raised beach We built our house when I and my love were young.

— Robinson Jeffers

Here from this mountain shore, headland beyond stormy headlandEye of the earth; and what it watches is not our wars.

— Robinson Jeffers