Would last the earth out, not dying till the planet died. I wrote a schoolboy poem
About the last man walking in stoic dignity along the dead shore
Of the last sea, alone, alone, alone, remembering all
His racial past. But now I don’t think so. They’ll die faceless in flocks,
And the earth flourish long after mankind is out.
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When the sun shouts and people abound
bronzeAnd the iron age; iron the unstable metal;Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-ered-up citiesWill be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rainswill cure them,Then nothing will remain of the iron ageAnd all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poemStuck…
Some lucky day each November great waves awake and are
Like smoking mountains bright from the westAnd come and cover the cliff with white violent cleanness: thensuddenlyThe old granite forgets half a year’s filth:The orange-peel, eggshells, papers, pieces of clothing, the clotsOf dung in corners of the rock, and usedSheaths that make light love safe in the evenings: all the droppingsof the summerIdlers washed off…
The storm-dances of gulls, the barking game of seals,
Divinely superfluous beautyRules the games, presides over destinies, makes trees growAnd hills tower, waves fall.The incredible beauty of joyStars with fire the joining of lips, O let our loves tooBe joined, there is not a maidenBurns and thirsts for loveMore than my blood for you, by the shore of seals while the wingsWeave like a…
Like mourning women veiled to the feet
far verge.The ocean is green where the river empties,Dull gray between the points of the headlands, purple wherethe women walk.What do they want? Whom are they mourning?What hero’s dust in the urn between the two hands hidden inthe veil?Titaness after Titaness proudlyBearing her tender magnificent sorrow at her heart, the lostbattle’s beauty.
I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
high up in heaven,And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbitnarrowing,I understood thenThat I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-feathersWhistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.I could see the naked red head between the great wingsBear downward staring. I said, ‘My dear bird, we are…
Still the mind smiles at its own rebellions,
That make humanity ridiculous, remainBeautiful in the whole fabric, excesses that balance each otherLike the paired wings of a flying bird.Misery and riches, civilization and squalid savagery,Mass war and the odor of unmanly peace:Tragic flourishes above and below the normal of life.In order to value this fretful timeIt is necessary to remember our norm, the…