Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Robert Penn Warren: youngest of the Fugitives

Prolific poet and author of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the King’s Men

  • Mortal Limit
  • I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming.
  • It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags
  • Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming
  • Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags.
  • There—west—were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be
  • In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height
  • Hangs now the black speck? Beyond what range will gold eyes see
  • New ranges rise to mark a last scrawl of light?
  • Or, having tasted that atmosphere’s thinness, does it
  • Hang motionless in dying vision before
  • It knows it will accept the mortal limit,
  • And swing into the great circular downwardness that will restore
  • The breath of earth? Of rock? Of rot? Of other such
  • Items, and the darkness of whatever dream we clutch?
  • Evening Hawk
  • From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
  • Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
  • Out of the peak’s black angularity of shadow, riding
  • The last tumultuous avalanche of
  • Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
  • The hawk comes.
  • His wing
  • Scythes down another day, his motion 
  • Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
  • The crashless fall of stalks of Time.
  • The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.
  • Look! Look! he is climbing the last light
  • Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
  • Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
  • Into shadow.
  • Long now,
  • The last thrush is still, the last bat
  • Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom
  • Is ancient, too, and immense. The star
  • Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.
  • If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
  • The earth grind on its axis, or history
  • Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.
  • San Francisco Night Windows
  • So hangs the hour like fruit fullblown and sweet,
  • Our strict and desperate avatar,
  • Despite that antique westward gulls lament
  • Over enormous waters which retreat
  • Weary unto the white and sensual star.
  • Accept these images for what they are— 
  • Out of the past a fragile element
  • Of substance into accident.
  • I would speak honestly and of a full heart; 
  • I would speak surely for the tale is short,
  • And the soul’s remorseless catalogue
  • Assumes its quick and piteous sum.
  • Think you, hungry is the city in the fog
  • Where now the darkened piles resume
  • Their framed and frozen prayer
  • Articulate and shafted in the stone
  • Against the void and absolute air.
  • If so the frantic breath could be forgiven,
  • And the deep blood subdued before it is gone 
  • In a savage paternoster to the stone,
  • Then might we all be shriven.
Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) was an American poet and novelist, and the youngest and latest addition to the 1920s Southern literary movement known as the Fugitives, which also included Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom and Donald Davidson. Like his fellow Fugitives, Warren sought to celebrate all that was best and noble in Southern culture and history through his literary output. Although he was a prolific poet, he is perhaps best known as the author of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the King’s Men, a fictional retelling of the story of Huey Long, the “Kingfisher” who served as governor of Louisiana in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Domestic disturbance at the home of Mayor Gloria and partner

Home Sweet Homeless?
  • Mortal Limit
  • I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming.
  • It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags
  • Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming
  • Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags.
  • There—west—were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be
  • In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height
  • Hangs now the black speck? Beyond what range will gold eyes see
  • New ranges rise to mark a last scrawl of light?
  • Or, having tasted that atmosphere’s thinness, does it
  • Hang motionless in dying vision before
  • It knows it will accept the mortal limit,
  • And swing into the great circular downwardness that will restore
  • The breath of earth? Of rock? Of rot? Of other such
  • Items, and the darkness of whatever dream we clutch?
  • Evening Hawk
  • From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
  • Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
  • Out of the peak’s black angularity of shadow, riding
  • The last tumultuous avalanche of
  • Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
  • The hawk comes.
  • His wing
  • Scythes down another day, his motion 
  • Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
  • The crashless fall of stalks of Time.
  • The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.
  • Look! Look! he is climbing the last light
  • Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
  • Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
  • Into shadow.
  • Long now,
  • The last thrush is still, the last bat
  • Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom
  • Is ancient, too, and immense. The star
  • Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.
  • If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
  • The earth grind on its axis, or history
  • Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.
  • San Francisco Night Windows
  • So hangs the hour like fruit fullblown and sweet,
  • Our strict and desperate avatar,
  • Despite that antique westward gulls lament
  • Over enormous waters which retreat
  • Weary unto the white and sensual star.
  • Accept these images for what they are— 
  • Out of the past a fragile element
  • Of substance into accident.
  • I would speak honestly and of a full heart; 
  • I would speak surely for the tale is short,
  • And the soul’s remorseless catalogue
  • Assumes its quick and piteous sum.
  • Think you, hungry is the city in the fog
  • Where now the darkened piles resume
  • Their framed and frozen prayer
  • Articulate and shafted in the stone
  • Against the void and absolute air.
  • If so the frantic breath could be forgiven,
  • And the deep blood subdued before it is gone 
  • In a savage paternoster to the stone,
  • Then might we all be shriven.
Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) was an American poet and novelist, and the youngest and latest addition to the 1920s Southern literary movement known as the Fugitives, which also included Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom and Donald Davidson. Like his fellow Fugitives, Warren sought to celebrate all that was best and noble in Southern culture and history through his literary output. Although he was a prolific poet, he is perhaps best known as the author of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the King’s Men, a fictional retelling of the story of Huey Long, the “Kingfisher” who served as governor of Louisiana in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Sponsored
Sponsored
Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Pranksters vandalize Padres billboard in wake of playoff loss

Where’s the bat at?
Next Article

Conservatives cry, “Turnabout is fair gay!”

Will Three See Eight’s Fate?
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader