Friday Poem: Shine, Perishing Republic

The last few days have been so full of pain for us as a nation and for us as people. This morning, I remembered this poem, so here it is, for what it's worth.

Shine, Perishing Republic

While this America settles in the mould of its 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 lies 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 a trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught

-- they say God --, when he walked on Earth.

Robertson Jeffers

1925