Shine

I have great love and admiration for Robinson Jeffers and his poetry. He lived in Carmel before it became "Carmel."  

Jeffers wrote the following poem in 1952:

 

Shine, Perishing Republic

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass
      hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and
      home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or
     suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center;
     corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the
     mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable
     master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught–they say–God, when he walked on earth.