SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC - Robinson Jeffers

SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC

While this America settles in the mould of if 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.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center: corruption never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.  

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught - they say - God, when he walked on Earth.