Robinson Jeffers

Hope Is Not For The Wise

Hope is not for the wise, fear is for fools; Change and the world, we think, are racing to a fall, Open-eyed and helpless, in every newscast that is the news: The time's events would seem mere chaos but all Drift the one deadly direction. But this is only The August thunder of the age, not the November. Wise men hope nothing, the wise are naturally lonely And think November as good as April, the wise remember That Caesar and even final Augustulus had heirs, And men lived on; rich unplanned life on earth After the foreign wars and the civil wars, the border wars And the barbarians: music and religion, honor and mirth Renewed life's lost enchantments. But if life even Had perished utterly, Oh perfect loveliness of earth and heaven.