While this America settles in this 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: sunshine, 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 mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,
a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches the noblest of spirits,
that caught - they say - God, when he walked on the earth.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
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