They burned lime on the hill and dropped it down <br /> here in an iron car <br />On a long cable; here the ships warped in <br />And took their loads from the engine, the water <br /> is deep to the cliff. The car <br />Hangs half way over in the gape of the gorge, <br />Stationed like a north star above the peaks of <br /> the redwoods, iron perch <br />For the little red hawks when they cease from <br /> hovering <br />When they've struck prey; the spider's fling of a <br /> cable rust-glued to the pulleys. <br />The laborers are gone, but what a good multitude <br />Is here in return: the rich-lichened rock, the <br /> rose-tipped stone-crop, the constant <br />Ocean's voices, the cloud-lighted space. <br />The kilns are cold on the hill but here in the <br /> rust of the broken boiler <br />Quick lizards lighten, and a rattle-snake flows <br />Down the cracked masonry, over the crumbled <br /> fire-brick. In the rotting timbers <br />And roofless platforms all the free companies <br />Of windy grasses have root and make seed; wild <br /> buckwheat blooms in the fat <br />Weather-slacked lime from the bursted barrels. <br />Two duckhawks darting in the sky of their cliff-hung <br /> nest are the voice of the headland. <br />Wine-hearted solitude, our mother the wilderness, <br />Men's failures are often as beautiful as men's <br /> triumphs, but your returnings <br />Are even more precious than your first presence. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Submitted by Holt<br /><br />Robinson Jeffers<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bixby-s-landing/
