HERE COMES the FALL...

NIGHT by Robinson Jeffers ( 1887-1962) (excerpts)

The ebb slips from the rock, the sunken Tide-rocks lift streaming shoulders 

out of the slack, the slow west sombering its torch.

Over the dark mountain, over the dark pinewood, 

Down the long dark valley along the shrunken river

Returns the splendor without rays, the shining of shadow,

Peace-bringer, the matrix of all shining and quieter of shining

 where the shore widens on the bay she opens dark wings and the ocean accepts her glory.

Far off from here the slender flocks of the mountain forest

Move among stems like towers

Of the old redwoods to the stream, no twig crackling

Into the mountain water among the dark ferns.....

The tide, moving the night's vastness with lonely voices,

Turns, the deep dark-shining Pacific leans on the land

To the outmost margins: you Night will resume the stars in your time.

Truly the spouting fountains of light, Antares, Arcturus, tire of their flow,

They sing one song but they think silence.

And Life, the flicker of men and moths and the wolf on the hill

Have men's minds changed, or the rock hidden in the deep waters of the soul

Broken the surface?

A few centuries gone by, was none dared not to people

the darkness beyond the stars with harps....

But now , dear, is the truth...

Life is grown sweeter........

Photography 2025 "Night" by Robinson Jeffers  is in the public domain. It is a very long narrative in the epic style of Greek theatre...