Wonder and Joy by Robinson Jeffers

February 7, 2015   Wonder and Joy   Robinson Jeffers

The things that one grows tired of—O, be sure They are only foolish artificial things! Can a bird ever tire of having wings? And I, so long as life and sense endure, (Or brief be they!) shall nevermore inure My heart to the recurrence of the springs, Of gray dawns, the gracious evenings, The infinite wheeling stars. A wonder pure Must ever well within me to behold Venus decline; or great Orion, whose belt Is studded with three nails of burning gold, Ascend the winter heaven. Who never felt This wondering joy may yet be good or great: But envy him not: he is not fortunate.            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “Wonder and Joy” was published in Jeffers’s bookCalifornians (Macmillan, 1916).   Robinson Jeffers was born on January 10, 1887, in Pennsylvania. Jeffers’s verse, much of which is set in the Carmel/Big Sur region, celebrates the beauty of the coastal hills and ravines. He died in 1962. Photo Credit: Edward Weston Poetry by Jeffers   The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers (Stanford University Press, 2001) "The Daffodils" by William Wordsworth "Afternoon on a Hill" by Edna St. Vincent Millay "Happiness" by Jane Kenyon Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006,Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.