True, the time, to one who does not love farce, <br />And if misery must be prefers it nobler, shows apparent vices; <br />At least it provides the cure for ambition. <br />One does not crave power in ant-hills, nor praise in a paper forest; <br />One must not even indulge the severe <br />Romance of separateness, as of Milton grown blind and old <br />In his broken temple against the drunkards: <br />The ants are good creatures, there is nothing to be heroic about. <br />But the time is not a strong prison either. <br />A little scraping the walls of dishonest contractor's concrete <br />Through a shower of chips and sand makes freedom. <br />Shake the dust from your hair. This mountain sea-coast is real, <br />For it reaches out far into past and future; <br />It is part of the great and timeless excellence of things. A few <br />Lean cows drift high up the bronze hill; <br />The heavy-necked plow-team furrows the foreland, gulls tread the furrow; <br />Time ebbs and flows but the rock remains. <br />Two riders of tired horses canter on the cloudy ridge; <br />Topaz-eyed hawks have the white air; <br />Or a woman with jade-pale eyes, hiding a knife in her hand, <br />Goes through cold rain over gray grass. <br />God is here, too, secretly smiling, the beautiful power <br />That piles up cities for the poem of their fall <br />And gathers multitude like game to be hunted when the season comes.<br /><br />Robinson Jeffers<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-little-scraping/
