Tor House
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
If you should look for this place after a handful
of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast
cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers
had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you should look in your idleness after ten
thousand years:
It is the granite knoll on the granite
And lava tongue in the midst of the bay, by the mouth
of the Carmel
River-valley, these four will remain
In the change of names. You will know it by the wild
sea-fragrance of wind
Though the ocean may have climbed or retired a little;
You will know it by the valley inland that our sun
and our moon were born from
Before the poles changed; and Orion in December
Evenings was strung in the throat of the valley like
a lamp-lighted bridge.
Come in the morning you will see white gulls
Weaving a dance over blue water, the wane of the moon
Their dance-companion, a ghost walking
By daylight, but wider and whiter than any bird in
the world.
My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably
Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not
dancing on wind
With the mad wings and the day moon.
Submitted by Holt
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 1:10 min read
- 147 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXXXXAXXXXXXXXXXBXXXXXXACXXXXXBC X |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,310 |
Words | 234 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 32, 1 |
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"Tor House" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/32905/tor-house>.
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