Birds and Fishes
Every October millions of little fish come along the shore,
Coasting this granite edge of the continent
On their lawful occasions: but what a festival for the sea-fowl.
What a witches' sabbath of wings
Hides the dark water. The heavy pelicans shout “Haw!” like Job's friend's warhorse
And dive from the high air, the cormorants
Slip their long black bodies under the water and hunt like wolves
Through the green half-light. Screaming, the gulls watch,
Wild with envy and malice, cursing and snatching. What hysterical greed!
What a filling of pouches! the mob
Hysteria is nearly human—these decent birds!—as if they were finding
Gold in the street. It is better than gold,
It can be eaten: and which one in all this fury of wild-fowl pities the fish?
No one certainly. Justice and mercy
Are human dreams, they do not concern the birds nor the fish nor eternal God.
However—look again before you go.
The wings and wild hungers, the wave-worn skerries, the bright quick minnows
Living in terror to die in torment—
Man's fate and theirs—and the island rocks and immense ocean beyond, and Lobos
Darkening above the bay: they are beautiful?
That is their quality: not mercy, not mind, not goodness, but the beauty of God.
“Birds and Fishes” from The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers . Copyright 1924, 1925, 1928, 1937, 1954 and renewed 1949, 1953, 1956 by Robinson Jeffers. Copyright © 1963 by Stevben Glass. Reproduced by permission of Stanford University Press.
Coasting this granite edge of the continent
On their lawful occasions: but what a festival for the sea-fowl.
What a witches' sabbath of wings
Hides the dark water. The heavy pelicans shout “Haw!” like Job's friend's warhorse
And dive from the high air, the cormorants
Slip their long black bodies under the water and hunt like wolves
Through the green half-light. Screaming, the gulls watch,
Wild with envy and malice, cursing and snatching. What hysterical greed!
What a filling of pouches! the mob
Hysteria is nearly human—these decent birds!—as if they were finding
Gold in the street. It is better than gold,
It can be eaten: and which one in all this fury of wild-fowl pities the fish?
No one certainly. Justice and mercy
Are human dreams, they do not concern the birds nor the fish nor eternal God.
However—look again before you go.
The wings and wild hungers, the wave-worn skerries, the bright quick minnows
Living in terror to die in torment—
Man's fate and theirs—and the island rocks and immense ocean beyond, and Lobos
Darkening above the bay: they are beautiful?
That is their quality: not mercy, not mind, not goodness, but the beauty of God.
“Birds and Fishes” from The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers . Copyright 1924, 1925, 1928, 1937, 1954 and renewed 1949, 1953, 1956 by Robinson Jeffers. Copyright © 1963 by Stevben Glass. Reproduced by permission of Stanford University Press.
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.