Source of poetry passage


In going through her husband's papers, Kathryn comes across an excerpt from what sounds like an Irish poem. The word "Antrim" is centered at the top of the page. I am interested in finding out the title, who wrote this, and some biographical information. I can't find my book. Can anyone supply me with this information? The line Kathryn begins her reading is:

"Here in the narrow passage and the pitiless north"

The stanza begins:

"No spot of earth where men have so fiercely for ages of time
Fought, survived, and cancelled each other"

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"Antrim" is credited as Robinson Jeffries, Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffries, Stanford University Press

If this is Robinson Jeffers, then there is such a poet and such a book (a 5 volume set). Otherwise, I can find nothing about a poet Robinson Jeffries.

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[deleted]

ANTRIM

No spot on earth where men have so fiercely for ages of time
Fought and survived and cancelled each other,
Pict and Gael and Dane, McQuillan, Clandonnel, O'Neill,
Savages, the Scot, the Norman, the English,
Here in the narrow passage and the pitiless north, perpetual
Betrayals, relentless resultless fighting.
A random fury of dirks in the dark; a struggle for survival
Of hungry blind cells of life in the womb.
But now the womb has grown old, her strength has gone forth;
a few red carts in a fog creak flax to the dubs,
And sheep in the high heather cry hungrily that life is hard;
a plaintive peace; shepherds and peasants.

We have felt the blades meet in the flesh in a hundred ambushes
And the groaning blood bubble in the throat;
In a hundred battles the heavy axes bite the deep bone,
The mountain suddenly stagger and be darkened.
Generation on generation we have seen the blood of boys
And heard the moaning of women massacred,
The passionate flesh and nerves have flamed like pitchpine and fallen
And lain in the earth softly dissolving.
I have lain and been humbled in all these graves, and mixed new flesh
with the old and filled the hollow of my mouth
With maggots and rotten dust and ages of repose, I lie here and plot
the agony of resurrection.

-- Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

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