Robinson Jeffers — The great wound

At the near approach of a star-huge tides

Agitated the molten surface of the earth.

The tides grew higher as it passed. It tore from the earth

I he top of one great wave: the moon was torn

Out of the Pacific'basin: the cold white stone that lights

    us at night

Left that great wound in the earth, the Pacific Ocean

With all its islands and navies. I can stand on the cliff here

And hear the half-molten basalt and granite tearing apai

    and see that huge bird

Leaping up to her star. But the star passed,

The moon remained, circling her ancient home,

Dragging the sea-tides after her, haggard with loneliness.

The mathematicians and physics men

Have their mythology; they work alongside the truth,

Never touching it; their equations are false

But the things work. Or, when gross error appears,

They invent new ones; they drop the theory of waves

In universal ether and imagine curved space.

Nevertheless their equations bombed Hiroshima.

The terrible things worked.

                        The poet also

Has his mythology. He tells you the moon arose

Out of the Pacific basin. He tells you that Troy was burnt for

    vagrant

Beautiful woman, whose face launched a thousand ships.

It is unlikely: it might be true: but church and state

Depend on more peculiarly impossible myths:

That all men are born free and equal: consider that!

And that a wandering Hebrew poet named Jesus

Is the God of the universe. Consider that!