Tor House
If you should look for this place after a handful
of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast
cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers
had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you should look in your idleness after ten
thousand years:
It is the granite knoll on the granite
And lava tongue in the midst of the bay, by the mouth
of the Carmel
River-valley, these four will remain
In the change of names. You will know it by the wild
sea-fragrance of wind
Though the ocean may have climbed or retired a little;
You will know it by the valley inland that our sun
and our moon were born from
Before the poles changed; and Orion in December
Evenings was strung in the throat of the valley like
a lamp-lighted bridge.
Come in the morning you will see white gulls
Weaving a dance over blue water, the wane of the moon
Their dance-companion, a ghost walking
By daylight, but wider and whiter than any bird in
the world.
My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably
Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not
dancing on wind
With the mad wings and the day moon.
Submitted by Holt
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Related quotes
The Cycle
The clapping blackness of the wings of pointed cormorants,
the great indolent planes
Of autumn pelicans nine or a dozen strung shorelong,
But chiefly the gulls, the cloud-caligraphers of windy spirals
before a storm,
Cruise north and south over the sea-rocks and over
That bluish enormous opal; very lately these alone, these and the
clouds
And westering lights of heaven, crossed it; but then
A hull with standing canvas crept about Point Lobos . . . now
all day long the steamers
Smudge the opal's rim; often a seaplane troubles
The sea-wind with its throbbing heart. These will increase, the
others diminish; and later
These will diminish; our Pacific has pastured
The Mediterranean torch and passed it west across the fountains
of the morning;
And the following desolation that feeds on Crete
Feed here; the clapping blackness of the wings of pointed cormorants,
the great sails
Of autumn pelicans, the gray sea-going gulls,
Alone will streak the enormous opal, the earth have peace like the
broad water, our blood's
Unrest have doubled to Asia and be peopling
Europe again, or dropping colonies at the morning star: what
moody traveler
Wanders back here, watches the sea-fowl circle
The old sea-granite and cemented granite with one regard, and
greets my ghost,
One temper with the granite, bulking about here?
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Post Mortem
Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment,
they have had what they wanted,
No hard gifts; the unhappy
Linger a space, but pain is a thing that is glad to be forgotten;
but one who has given
His heart to a cause or a country,
His ghost may spaniel it a while, disconsolate to watch it. I was
wondering how long the spirit
That sheds this verse will remain
When the nostrils are nipped, when the brain rots in its vault
or bubbles in the violence of fire
To be ash in metal. I was thinking
Some stalks of the wood whose roots I married to the earth of
this place will stand five centuries;
I held the roots in my hand,
The stems of the trees between two fingers: how many remote
generations of women
Will drink joy from men's loins,
And dragged from between the thighs of what mothers will
giggle at my ghost when it curses the axemen,
Gray impotent voice on the sea-wind,
When the last trunk falls? The women's abundance will have
built roofs over all this foreland;
Will have buried the rock foundations
I laid here: the women's exuberance will canker and fail in its
time and like clouds the houses
Unframe, the granite of the prime
Stand from the heaps: come storm and wash clean: the plaster
is all run to the sea and the steel
All rusted; the foreland resumes
The form we loved when we saw it. Though one at the end of
the age and far off from this place
Should meet my presence in a poem,
The ghost would not care but be here, long sunset shadow in the
seams of the granite, and forgotten
The flesh, a spirit for the stone.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Birds
The fierce musical cries of a couple of sparrowhawks hunting
on the headland,
Hovering and darting, their heads northwestward,
Prick like silver arrows shot through a curtain the noise of the
ocean
Trampling its granite; their red backs gleam
Under my window around the stone corners; nothing gracefuller,
nothing
Nimbler in the wind. Westward the wave-gleaners,
The old gray sea-going gulls are gathered together, the northwest
wind wakening
Their wings to the wild spirals of the wind-dance.
Fresh as the air, salt as the foam, play birds in the bright wind,
fly falcons
Forgetting the oak and the pinewood, come gulls
From the Carmel sands and the sands at the river-mouth, from
Lobos and out of the limitless
Power of the mass of the sea, for a poem
Needs multitude, multitudes of thoughts, all fierce, all flesh-eaters,
musically clamorous
Bright hawks that hover and dart headlong, and ungainly
Gray hungers fledged with desire of transgression, salt slimed
beaks, from the sharp
Rock-shores of the world and the secret waters.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Hooded Night
At night, toward dawn, all the lights of the shore have died,
And the wind moves. Moves in the dark
The sleeping power of the ocean, no more beastlike than manlike,
Not to be compared; itself and itself.
Its breath blown shoreward huddles the world with a fog; no stars
Dance in heaven; no ship's light glances.
I see the heavy granite bodies of the rocks of the headland,
That were ancient here before Egypt had pyramids,
Bulk on the gray of the sky, and beyond them the jets of young trees
I planted the year of the Versailles peace.
But here is the final unridiculous peace. Before the first man
Here were the stones, the ocean, the cypresses,
And the pallid region in the stone-rough dome of fog where the moon
Falls on the west. Here is reality.
The other is a spectral episode: after the inquisitive animal's
Amusements are quiet: the dark glory.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Roundabaout
Ill be the round about
The words will make you out n out
You change the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
The music dance and sing
They make the children really ring
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
Chorus
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
One mile over well be there and well see
You
Ten true summers well be there and
Laughing too
Twenty four before my love youll see Ill be
There with you
I will remember you
Your silhouette will charge the view
Of distance atmosphere
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
Even in the valley
Chorus
Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching
Down on the land
Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees
The rim of the land
The eagles dancing wings create as weather
Spins out of hand
Go closer hold the land feel partly no more
Than grains of sand
We stand to lose all time a thousand answers
By in our hand
Nex to your deeper fears we stand
Surrounded by a million years
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
Chorus
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
Chorus
song performed by by Yes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Roundabaout
Ill be the round about
The words will make you out n out
You change the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
The music dance and sing
They make the children really ring
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
Chorus
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
One mile over well be there and well see
You
Ten true summers well be there and
Laughing too
Twenty four before my love youll see Ill be
There with you
I will remember you
Your silhouette will charge the view
Of distance atmosphere
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
Even in the valley
Chorus
Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching
Down on the land
Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees
The rim of the land
The eagles dancing wings create as weather
Spins out of hand
Go closer hold the land feel partly no more
Than grains of sand
We stand to lose all time a thousand answers
By in our hand
Nex to your deeper fears we stand
Surrounded by a million years
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
Chorus
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
Chorus
song performed by by Yes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To The Rock That Will Be A Cornerstone Of The House
Old garden of grayish and ochre lichen,
How long a rime since the brown people who have vanished from
here
Built fires beside you and nestled by you
Out of the ranging sea-wind? 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 plowhorses
Breaking the hilltop in December, sea-gulls following,
Screaming in the black furrow; no one
Touched 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 sea-wind.
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.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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In A Garden
Gushing from the mouths of stone men
To spread at ease under the sky
In granite-lipped basins,
Where iris dabble their feet
And rustle to a passing wind,
The water fills the garden with its rushing,
In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns.
Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone,
Where trickle and plash the fountains,
Marble fountains, yellowed with much water.
Splashing down moss-tarnished steps
It falls, the water;
And the air is throbbing with it.
With its gurgling and running.
With its leaping, and deep, cool murmur.
And I wished for night and you.
I wanted to see you in the swimming-pool,
White and shining in the silver-flecked water.
While the moon rode over the garden,
High in the arch of night,
And the scent of the lilacs was heavy with stillness.
Night, and the water, and you in your whiteness, bathing!
poem by Amy Lowell
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Roundabout
Roundabout
(jon anderson/steve howe)
Ill be the round about
The words will make you out n out
You change the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
The muses dance and sing
They make the children really ring
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
Chorus
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
One mile over well be there and well see
You
Ten true summers well be there and
Laughing too
Twenty four before my love youll see Ill be
There with you
I will remember you
Your silhouette will charge the view
Of distance atmosphere
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
Even in the valley
Chorus
Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching
Down on the land
Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees
The rim of the land
The eagles dancing wings create as weather
Spins out of hand
Go closer hold the land feel partly no more
Than grains of sand
We stand to lose all time a thousand answers
By in our hand
Next to your deeper fears we stand
Surrounded by a million years
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
Chorus
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
Chorus
song performed by by Yes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Roundabout
Roundabout
(jon anderson/steve howe)
Ill be the round about
The words will make you out n out
You change the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
The muses dance and sing
They make the children really ring
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
Chorus
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
One mile over well be there and well see
You
Ten true summers well be there and
Laughing too
Twenty four before my love youll see Ill be
There with you
I will remember you
Your silhouette will charge the view
Of distance atmosphere
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
Even in the valley
Chorus
Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching
Down on the land
Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees
The rim of the land
The eagles dancing wings create as weather
Spins out of hand
Go closer hold the land feel partly no more
Than grains of sand
We stand to lose all time a thousand answers
By in our hand
Next to your deeper fears we stand
Surrounded by a million years
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
Chorus
Ill be the roundabout
The words will make you out n out
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley
Chorus
song performed by by Yes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mirror Pools Of Split Reflections
life has many mirror...
pools of split reflection...
daylight oil spreads out
across surface mirror
of water oiled in rainbow
diesel dance bright hues
watch ghost dance change
images bend twist stir
in motions across mirror
night tide dawns sweeps
away rainbows moon shines
in reflection pools ghost
image sears in your face
hot passion winds summer
chill still spine needles winter
clouds sweep across moon...
dark upon black ink dark...
penetrate dark formless mirror
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Granite And Cypress
White-maned, wide-throated, the heavy-shouldered children of
the wind leap at the sea-cliff.
The invisible falcon
Brooded on water and bred them in wide waste places, in a bridechamber
wide to the stars' eyes
In the center of the ocean,
Where no prows pass nor island is lifted ... the sea beyond
Lobos is whitened with the falcon's
Passage, he is here now,
The sky is one cloud, his wing-feathers hiss in the white grass,
my sapling cypresses writhing
In the fury of his passage
Dare not dream of their centuries of future endurance of tempest.
(I have granite and cypress,
Both long-lasting,
Planted in the earth; but the granite sea-boulders are prey to no
hawk's wing, they have taken worse pounding,
Like me they remember
Old wars and are quiet; for we think that the future is one piece
with the past, we wonder why tree-tops
And people are so shaken.)
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Blue Moon.
Blue moon at least
That is what he said
It was but she had her
Doubts and anyway
That was the least of
Her problems her bleeds
Being three months overdue
And what was a girl to say
Or do what with the parents
Being such religious fools and
That cane over the fireplace
That her granite hard grandfather
Put there as a threat to breakdown
Of order or morality and moon blue
Or no she knew it was either to abort
The babe in some dark room or go.
poem by Terry Collett
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Trilogy
Iridescent she came before the light of dawn,
fromward this world or my doomed outcase;
'Let me show you love in my eyes and ways,
before death turns me back to granite stone.'
We embraced while the wind raced moaning,
strings of lost lives joined outside of grief;
there was a hope left after the arcane Nymph
fled East, towards the first light of morning.
Deplorable, sinister children of metamorphosis,
with vociferous hoarse calls, values degraded,
membranophones of death, ominous invaded,
dark cadence to enact, my meter of apotheosis.
They cut me thrice and once as I slaughtered,
grotesque barbarians, fought me entranced;
I prayed to see her refulgent sight enhanced,
monstrous horrors descended and a twilit bird.
Tenebrious, changed their trilogy to immoral,
for horrid and inferior screamed wounded cries,
euphoric Spring felt forcing them to baptize
into anaphoric flowing red to Hades and flora.
Iridescent she came before the light of dawn,
fromward this world or my doomed outcase;
'Let me show you love in my eyes and ways,
before death turns me back to granite stone.'
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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Rain in the Mountains
The Valley's full of misty cloud,
Its tinted beauty drowning,
The Eucalypti roar aloud,
The mountain fronts are frowning.
The mist is hanging like a pall
From many granite ledges,
And many a little waterfall
Starts o’er the valley’s edges.
The sky is of a leaden grey,
Save where the north is surly,
The driven daylight speeds away,
And night comes o’er us early.
But, love, the rain will pass full soon,
Far sooner than my sorrow,
And in a golden afternoon
The sun may set to-morrow.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Whole Of The Moon
I pictured a rainbow
You held in your hands
I had flashes
But you saw then plan
I wondered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!
You were there at the turnstiles
With the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars
And you know how it feels
To reach too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon!
I was grounded
While you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truths
You cut through lies
I saw the rain-dirty valley
You saw brigadoon
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon!
I spoke about wings
You just flew
I wondered, I guessed, and I tried
You just knew
I sighed
But you swooned
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!
With a torch in your pocket
And the wind at your heels
You climbed on the ladder
And you know how it feels
To reach too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!
Unicorns and cannonballs,
Palaces and piers,
Trumpets, towers, and tenemets,
Wide oceans full of tears,
Flag, rags, ferry boats,
Scimitars and scarves,
Every precious dream and vision
Underneath the stars
You climbed on the ladder
With the wind in your sails
You came like a comet
Blazing your trail
Too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon!
song performed by by Waterboys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Valley
Wake hard in the morning.
See the young girl milking.
Stream rushing by on a bed of stone.
Old goats and sandstone cracking --
All containing --
Squeezing that river like it squeeze your bones.
In the long red, red valley people live here too long.
In the long red, red valley they only sing the valley song.
Some bad people living further down the valley,
Not easy for us to do good trade.
We got snowmelt, snowmelt sweet water.
They got that valley road that they made.
In the long red, red valley people dying here too long.
In the long red, red valley they only sing the valley song.
Holding hands on the hillside.
Showing love to your brother --
Your sister and your mother --
But we hate those people down the valley.
Has anybody seen moses?
Get him off that mountain.
Bring back the tablets of stone.
Its a wise, wise prophet who keeps his own council.
Yeah, leave the other mans wife alone.
In the long red, red valley people live here too long.
In the long red, red valley they only sing the valley song.
Wake hard in the morning.
See the young girl milking.
Stream rushing by on a bed of stone.
Old goats and sandstone cracking --
All containing --
Squeezing that river like it squeeze your bones.
In the long red, red valley people living here too long.
In the long red, red valley they only live the valley song.
In the long red, red valley people dying here too long.
In the long red, red valley they only know the valley song.
song performed by by Jethro Tull
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fragment
Moon of leaves,
Moon of the falling leaves,
To you I bring the slippers
of the sun.
That you may dance upon the
floor of sun,
My lady carries sun within her eyes.
Moon of the Unrevealed,
Moon of the gold-encrusted shield,
To you I bring the fragment
of my prayer.
Moon of the crinkled hair,
Tell me, will my lady yield
Eyes and mouth and breasts unsealed?
Will my lady yield?
Moon of the yellow streaked with red,
Moon that the sun would lead to bed,
Moon with the death's head
More than dead,
Why do you frighten the Goddess of Love,
Whose frail white fingers are moving above
The lover's white body lost in his love?
Moon, you are more than dead.
Moon of the ermine loist in the snow,
Moon of the frozen furbelow,
Moon of the nothingness here below,
Moon, you must go.
It is the Sun that tells you so-
Moon, you must go.
And I was dark beneath the moon,
And you were dark beneath the moon,
And we were dark beneath the moon.
Now I am gold beneath the sun,
Now you are gold beneath the sun,
Now we are gold beneath the Sun.
poem by Harry Crosby
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I looked along the San Juan Islands and the coast of California, but I couldn't find the palette of green, granite, and dark blue that you can only find in Maine.
quote by Parker Stevenson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dance
dance the river is there to rise
dance touch me and close your eyes
dance the winds will touch your feet
just dance and dance feel the beat
dance the river will find its mouth
dance east and west north and south
dance the river will find my lips
dance the poles to move my hips
dance the bees are dancing hives
dance the trees are swaying lives
dance the waves are breaking through
dance the sides for me and you
dance the birds are dancing flights
dance the stars are dancing nights
dance the currents dancing veins
dance in soils dancing grains
dance the last atom cutting a knot
just dance and dance until you cannot
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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