Robinson Jeffers

As for me, I would rather be a worm in a wild apple than a son of man. But we are what we are, and we might remember not to hate any person, for all are vicious; And not to be astonished at any evil, all are deserved; And not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.

Nature knows that people are a tide that swells and in time will ebb, and all their works dissolve ... As for us: We must uncenter our minds from ourselves. We must unhumanize our views a little and become confident as the rock and ocean that we are made from.

Does it matter whether you hate yourself? At least love your eyes that can see, your mind that can hear the music, the thunder of the wings.

Poetry is not a civilizer, rather the reverse, for great poetry appeals to the most primitive instincts.

I've changed my ways a little, I cannot now Run with you in the evenings along the shore, Except in a kind of dream, and you, if you dream a moment, You see me there.

You making 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.

Death's a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made / Something more equal to the centuries / Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.

If you should look for this place after a handful of lifetimes:_x000D_ _x000D_ Perhaps of my planted forest a few_x000D_ _x000D_ May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast cypress, haggard_x000D_ _x000D_ With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils._x000D_ _x000D_ Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers had the art_x000D_ _x000D_ To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.

Justice and mercy/ Are human dreams, they do not concern the birds nor the fish nor eternal God.