The Bloody Sire

Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)



It is not bad. Let them play.
Let the guns bark and the bombing-plane
Speak his prodigious blasphemies.
It is not bad, it is high time,
Stark violence is still the sire of all the world’s values.

What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine
The fleet limbs of the antelope?
What but fear winged the birds, and hunger
Jewelled with such eyes the great goshawk’s head?
Violence has been the sire of all the world’s values.

Who would remember Helen’s face
Lacking the terrible halo of spears?
Who formed Christ but Herod and Caesar,
The cruel and bloody victories of Caesar?
Violence, the bloody sire of all the world’s values.

Never weep, let them play,
Old violence is not too old to beget new values.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 04, 2023

38 sec read
252

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXBXB XXCXB BBCCB AB
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 718
Words 128
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 2

Robinson Jeffers

John Robinson Jeffers was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. more…

All Robinson Jeffers poems | Robinson Jeffers Books

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