A poem: The Bloody Sire - Robinson Jeffers

[riot138]

Just ran across this in some of my old stuff. I'm not intending to spark debate, just reproducing for reading enjoyment. Anyone looking for further reading might look up the philosophy of romantic-mysticism...

The Bloody Sire - Robinson Jeffers

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
Jeweled 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 Caeser,
The cruel and bloody victories of Caeser?
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.