Rock and Hawk
Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.
This gray rock, standing
tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,
Earthquake-proved, and
signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.
I think, here is your
emblem,
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,
But this; bright power, dark
peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;
Life with calm death; the
falcon's
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive
Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.
~ Robinson Jeffers ~
(The Selected Poetry of Robinson
Jeffers)
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