Sports and gallantries, the stage, the arts, the antics of dancers, <br />The exuberant voices of music, <br />Have charm for children but lack nobility; it is bitter earnestness <br />That makes beauty; the mind <br />Knows, grown adult. <br />A sudden fog-drift muffled the ocean, <br />A throbbing of engines moved in it, <br />At length, a stone's throw out, between the rocks and the vapor, <br />One by one moved shadows <br />Out of the mystery, shadows, fishing-boats, trailing each other <br />Following the cliff for guidance, <br />Holding a difficult path between the peril of the sea-fog <br />And the foam on the shore granite. <br />One by one, trailing their leader, six crept by me, <br />Out of the vapor and into it, <br />The throb of their engines subdued by the fog, patient and <br />cautious, <br />Coasting all round the peninsula <br />Back to the buoys in Monterey harbor. A flight of pelicans <br />Is nothing lovelier to look at; <br />The flight of the planets is nothing nobler; all the arts lose virtue <br />Against the essential reality <br />Of creatures going about their business among the equally <br />Earnest elements of nature.<br /><br />Robinson Jeffers<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/boats-in-a-fog/
