A Celtic spearman forcing the cromlech-builder's brown <br />daughter; <br />A blond Saxon, a slayer of Britons, <br />Building his farm outside the village he'd burned; a Norse <br />Voyager, wielder of oars and a sword, <br />Thridding the rocks at the fjord sea-end, hungry as a hawk; <br />A hungry Gaelic chiefling in Ulster, <br />Whose blood with the Norseman's rotted in the rain on a heather <br />hill: <br />These by the world's time were very recent <br />Forefathers of yours. And you are a maker of verses. The pallid <br />Pursuit of the world's beauty on paper, <br />Unless a tall angel comes to require it, is a pitiful pastime. <br />If, burnished new from God's eyes, an angel: <br />And the ardors of the simple blood showing clearly a little <br />ridiculous <br />In this changed world: write and be quiet.<br /><br />Robinson Jeffers<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/second-best-9/
