Time poems
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To The Stone-Cutters
© Robinson Jeffers
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
The Answer
© Robinson Jeffers
Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
The Purse-Seine
© Robinson Jeffers
Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark
of the moon; daylight or moonlight
They could not tell where to spread the net,
unable to see the phosphorescence of the
Summer Holiday
© Robinson Jeffers
When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of
bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;
Praise Life
© Robinson Jeffers
This country least, but every inhabited country
Is clotted with human anguish.
Remember that at your feasts.
End Of The World
© Robinson Jeffers
When I was young in school in Switzerland, about the time of the Boer War,
We used to take it for known that the human race
Would last the earth out, not dying till the planet died. I wrote a schoolboy poem
About the last man walking in stoic dignity along the dead shore
The Bulldozer
© Robert Francis
Bull by day
And dozes by night.Would that the bulldozer
Dozed all the timeWould that the bulldozer
Would rust in peace.His watchword
On a Theme by Frost
© Robert Francis
Amherst never had a witch
O Coos or of GraftonBut once upon a time
There were three old women.One wore a small beard
And carried a big umbrella.One stood in the middle
Hallelujah: A Sestina
© Robert Francis
A wind's word, the Hebrew Hallelujah.
I wonder they never gave it to a boy
(Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair.
It means Praise God, as well it should since praise
Is what God's for. Why didn't they call my father
Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer?
Psalm XXXVI: High in the Heav'ns
© Isaac Watts
High in the heav'ns, eternal God,
Thy goodness in full glory shines;
Thy truth shall break through ev'ry cloud
That veils and darkens thy designs.
Psalm LXXIV: Will God For Ever Cast Us Off?
© Isaac Watts
Will God for ever east us off?
His wrath for ever smoke
Against the people of' his love,
His little chosen flock?
Psalm LXXII: Great God
© Isaac Watts
Great God, whose universal sway
The known and unknown worlds obey,
Now give the kingdom to thy Son,
Extend his power, exalt his throne.
Psalm 95
© Isaac Watts
Sing to the Lord Jehovah's name,
And in his strength rejoice;
When his salvation is our theme,
Exalted be our voice.
Psalm 90
© Isaac Watts
Through every age, eternal God,
Thou art our rest, our safe abode;
High was thy throne ere heav'n was made,
Or earth thy humble footstool laid.
Psalm 77 part 1
© Isaac Watts
To God I cried with mournful voice,
I sought his gracious ear,
In the sad day when troubles rose,
And filled the night with fear.
Psalm 74
© Isaac Watts
Will God for ever cast us off?
His wrath for ever smoke
Against the people of his love,
His little chosen flock?
Psalm 72 part 1
© Isaac Watts
Great God, whose universal sway
The known and unknown worlds obey,
Now give the kingdom to thy Son,
Extend his power, exalt his throne.
