Here is the other poem by Jeffers, should anyone be missing it. I think it has some brilliant subtleties more degrading of Hitler than it might seem at first. But clearly I have a deep respect for Jeffers.
I do think this is related to the Pound-ing. Thanks for making me think about it Bill.
June, 1943
If you had thrown a little more boldly in the flood of fortune
You’d have had England; or in the slackening
Less boldly, you’d not have sunk your right hand in Russia: these
Are the two ghosts; they stand by the bed
And make a man tear his flesh. The rest is fatal; each day
A new disaster, and at last Vae Victis,
It means Weh den Gesiegten. This is the essence of tragedy,
To have meant well and made woe, and watch Fate,
All stone, approach.
But tragedy has obligations. A choice
Comes to each man when his days darken:
To be tragic or to be pitiful. You must do nothing pitiful.
Suicide, which no doubt you contemplate,
Is not enough, suicide is for bankrupt shopkeepers.
You should be Samson, blind Samson, crushing
Al his foes, that’s Europe, America, half Asia, in his fall.
But you are not able; and the tale is Hebrew.
I have seen a wing-broken hawk, standing in her own dirt,
Helpless, a caged captive, with cold
Indomitable eyes of disdain, meet death. There was nothing pitiful,
No degradation, but eternal defiance.
Or a sheepfold harrier, a grim, grey wolf, hunted all day,
Wounded, struck down at the turn of twilight,
How grandly he dies. The pack whines in a ring and not closes,
The head lifts, the great fangs grin, the hunters
Admire their victim. That is how you should end — for the prophesied
You would die like a dog — like a wolf, war-loser.
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