Week 8 Analysis: To The Stone Cutters

To the Stone-Cutters

To the Stone Cutters was a short but powerful read that I thoroughly enjoyed. What was emphasized the most in this poem was the question of what we should want to leave behind after we are gone. I have pondered this question a lot and I think that part of the strive we as humans have to be great and be successful is so that we will remembered throughout the ages for the people that we were during our lifetime. I think anybody would rather be known as the person who helped others or gave back to their community rather than a bad person who did evil deeds. Jeffers wants to leave his legacy behind through his poetry, much like a stone-cutter carves their legacy in to the stone. The carving of a legacy in to history is a reminder to the people of the future that you did exist and that you walked the grounds of the Earth before they did, along with the rest of your contemporaries. "For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth dies, the brave sun Die blind, his heart blackening." Lines like these show how the author views poetry, much like stone carvings, to be a timeless piece of work. While your physical body will run it's course, and eventually wither away, your piece of writing could be carried on theoretically forever, and people hundreds, maybe even thousands of years in to the future will know that you did in fact exist. Leaving behind a legacy is something that people should strive for, and is a good aspiration to have. Poets leave behind their legacy and put their blood, sweat and tears in to their work so that nothing about their life gets left behind.