Bixby's Landing Analysis

Cawdor & Other Poems1928They burned lime on the hill and dropped it downhere in an iron car

On a long cable; here the ships warped in

And took their loads from the engine, the wateris deep to the cliff. The car

Hangs half way over in the gape of the gorge,

Stationed like a north star above the peaks ofthe redwoods, iron perch

For the little red hawks when they cease fromhovering

When they've struck prey; the spider's fling of acable rust-glued to the pulleys.

The laborers are gone, but what a good multitude

Is here in return: the rich-lichened rock, therose-tipped stone-crop, the constant

Ocean's voices, the cloud-lighted space.

The kilns are cold on the hill but here in therust of the broken boiler

Quick lizards lighten, and a rattle-snake flows

Down the cracked masonry, over the crumbledfire-brick. In the rotting timbers

And roofless platforms all the free companies

Of windy grasses have root and make seed; wildbuckwheat blooms in the fat

Weather-slacked lime from the bursted barrels.

Two duckhawks darting in the sky of their cliff-hungnest are the voice of the headland.

Wine-hearted solitude, our mother the wilderness,

Men's failures are often as beautiful as men'striumphs, but your returnings

Are even more precious than your first presence.

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