Night Without Sleep

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



The world's as the world is; the nations rearm and prepare to
change; the age of tyrants returns;
The greatest civilization that has ever existed builds itself higher
towers on breaking foundations.
Recurrent episodes; they were determined when the ape's children
first ran in packs, chipped flint to an edge.
I lie and hear dark rain beat the roof, and the blind wind.

In the morning perhaps
I shall find strength again
To value the immense beauty of this time of the world, the flowers
of decay their pitiful loveliness, the fever-dream
Tapestries that back the drama and are called the future. This
ebb of vitality feels the ignoble and cruel
Incidents, not the vast abstract order.

I lie and hear dark rain beat
the roof, and the night-blind wind.
In the Ventana country darkness and rain and the roar of waters
fill the deep mountain-throats.
The creekside shelf of sand where we lay last August under a slip of stars,
And firelight played on the leaning gorge-walls, is drowned and
lost. The deer of the country huddle on a ridge
In a close herd under madrone-trees; they tremble when a rockslide
goes down, they open great darkness-
Drinking eyes and press closer.

Cataracts of rock
Rain down the mountain from cliff to cliff and torment the
stream-bed. The stream deals with them. The laurels are wounded,
Redwoods go down with their earth and lie thwart the gorge. I
hear the torrent boulders battering each other,
I feel the flesh of the mountain move on its bones in the wet
darkness.

Is this more beautiful
Than man's disasters? These wounds will heal in their time; so
will humanity's. This is more beautiful ... at night . . .

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:27 min read
80

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXBXXXC XXDXXEB XCDXXXXAFB XXXXBXF EXX
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,615
Words 286
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 10, 7, 3

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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