To The Rock That Will Be A Cornerstone Of The House

Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)



Old garden of grayish and ochre lichen,
How long a rime since the brown people who have vanished from
here
Built fires beside you and nestled by you
Out of the ranging sea-wind? A hundred years, two hundred,
You have been dissevered from humanity
And only known the stubble squirrels and the headland rabbits,
Or the long-fetlocked plowhorses
Breaking the hilltop in December, sea-gulls following,
Screaming in the black furrow; no one
Touched you with love, the gray hawk and the red hawk touched
you
Where now my hand lies. So I have brought you
Wine and white milk and honey for the hundred years of famine
And the hundred cold ages of sea-wind.

I did not dream the taste of wine could bind with granite,
Nor honey and milk please you; but sweetly
They mingle down the storm-worn cracks among the mosses,
Interpenetrating the silent
Wing-prints of ancient weathers long at peace, and the older
Scars of primal fire, and the stone
Endurance that is waiting millions of years to carry
A corner of the house, this also destined.
Lend me the stone strength of the past and I will lend you
The wings of the future, for I have them.
How dear you will be to me when I too grow old, old comrade.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 06, 2023

1:05 min read
73

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXXBXCDDXAXBBAX XCXXXXCXBXX
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,173
Words 218
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 15, 11

Robinson Jeffers

John Robinson Jeffers was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. more…

All Robinson Jeffers poems | Robinson Jeffers Books

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