I.
Reference to a Passage in Plutarch's Life of
The people buying and selling, consuming pleasures, talking in the archways,
Were all suddenly struck
And ran from under stone to look up at the sky: so shrill and mournful,
So fierce and final, a
Pealing of trumpets high up in the air, in the summer blue over Tuscany.
They marvelled; the soothsayers answered:"Although the Gods are little troubled toward men, at the end of each periodA sign is declared in
Indicating new times, new customs, a changed people; the
Rule, and Etruria is finished;
A wise mariner will trim the sails to the wind." I heard
So shrill and mournful a trumpet-blast,
It was hard to be wise….
You must eat change and endure; not be much
For the people; they will have their happiness.
When the republic grows too heavy to endure, then Caesar will carry It;
When life grows hateful, there's power…II.
To the
Power's good; life is not always good but power's good.
So you must think when
Makes pawns of people and all the loaves are one dough.
The steep singleness of
Dies; they will say, "What was that?" but the power triumphs.
Loveliness will live under
And beauty will go savage in the secret mountains.
There is beauty in power also.
You children must widen your minds' eyes to take
Instead of faces, and
Instead of persons; not to hate life; and massed
After the lone hawk's dead.
That light blood-loving weasel, a tongue of
Fire licking the sides of the gray stones,
Has a more passionate and more pure
In the snake-slender flanks than man can imagine;
But he is betrayed by his own courage,
The man who kills him is like a cloud hiding a star.
Then praise the jewel-eyed hawk and the tall blue heron;
The black cormorants that fatten their
With shining slime; even that ruiner of
The red-shafted woodpecker flying,
A white star between blood-color wing-clouds,
Across the glades of the wood and the green lakes of shade.
These live their felt natures; they know their
And live it to the brim; they understand life.
While men moulding themselves to the anthill have
Their natures until the souls the in them;
They have sold themselves for toys and protection:
No, but consider awhile: what else?
Men sold for toys.
Uneasy and fractional people, having no
But in the eyes and mouths that surround them,
Having no function but to serve and
Civilization, the enemy of man,
No wonder they live insanely, and
With their tongues, progress; with their eyes, pleasure; with their hearts, death.
Their ancestors were good hunters, good herdsmen and swordsman,
But now the world is turned upside down;
The good do evil, the hope's in criminals; in
That dissolves the cities and war to destroy them.
Through wars and corruptions the house will fall.
Mourn whom it falls on.
Be glad: the house is mined, it will fall.
Rain, hail and brutal sun, the plow in the roots,
The pitiless pruning-iron in the branches,
Strengthen the vines, they are all feeding
Or powerless foes until the grapes purple.
But when you have ripened your berries it is time to begin to perish.
The world sickens with change, rain becomes poison,
The earth is a pit, it Is time to perish.
The vines are fey, the very kindness of
Corrupts what her cruelty before strengthened.
When you stand on the peak of time it is time to begin to perish.
Reach down the long morbid roots that forget the plow,
Discover the depths; let the long pale
Spend all to discover the sky, now nothing is
But only the steel mirrors of discovery . . .
And the beautiful enormous dawns of time, after we perish.
Mourning the broken balance, the hopeless prostration of the
Under men's hands and their minds,
The beautiful places killed like rabbits to make a city,
The spreading fungus, the
And spores; my own coast's obscene future:
I remember the
Future, and the last man
Without succession under the confident eyes of the stars.
It was only a moment's accident,
The race that plagued us; the world resumes the old lonely
Splendor; from here I can
Perceive that that snuffed candle had something . . . a fantastic virtue,
A faint and unshapely pathos . . .
So death will flatter them at last: what, even the bald ape's
Was moderately admirable?
VI.
All summer neither rain nor wave washes the cormorants'Perch, and their droppings have painted it shining white.
If the excrement of fish-eaters makes the brown rock a
At noon, a rose in the morning, a beacon at
On the black water: it is barely possible that even men's
Lives are something; their arts and sciences (by moonlight)Not wholly ridiculous, nor their cities merely an offense.
Under my windows, between the road and the sea-cliff, bitter wild
Stands narrowed between the people and the storm.
The ocean winter after winter gnaws at its earth, the wheels and the
Summer after summer encroach and destroy.
Stubborn green life, for the cliff-eater I cannot comfort you, ignorant which color,
Gray-blue or pale-green, will please the late stars;
But laugh at the other, your seed shall enjoy wonderful vengeance's and
The arteries and walk in triumph on the faces.
