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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO THE ROCK THAT WILL BE A CORNERSTONE OF THE HOUSE, by ROBINSON JEFFERS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Old garden of grayish and ochre lichen Last Line: How dear you will be to me when I too grow old, old comrade. Subject(s): Houses; Time | |||
Old garden of grayish and ochre lichen, How long a time since the brown people who have vanished from here Built fires beside you and nestled by you Out of the ranging seawind? A hundred years, two hundred, You have been dissevered from humanity And only known the stubble squirrels and the headland rabbits, Or the long-fetlocked plow horses Breaking the hilltop in December, sea-gulls following, Screaming in the black furrow; no one Touches you with love, the gray hawk and the red hawk touched you Where now my hand lies. So I have brought you Wine and white milk and honey for the hundred years of famine And the hundred cold ages of seawind. I did not dream the taste of wine could bind with granite, Nor honey and milk please you; but sweetly They mingle down the storm-worn cracks among the mosses, Interpenetrating the silent Wing-prints of ancient weathers long at peace, and the older Scars of primal fire, and the stone Endurance that is waiting millions of years to carry A corner of the house, this also destined. Lend me the stone strength of the past and I will lend you The wings of the future, for I have them. How dear you will be to me when I too grow old, old comrade. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEVEN EYES: FINAL SECTION by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: COME OCTOBER by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: HOME by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN SLOWLY: I FREQUENTLY SLOWLY WISH by LYN HEJINIAN ALL THE DIFFICULT HOURS AND MINUTES by JANE HIRSHFIELD A DAY IS VAST by JANE HIRSHFIELD FROM THIS HEIGHT by TONY HOAGLAND BOATS IN A FOG by ROBINSON JEFFERS |
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