..in the Disastrous rhythm...

“Rearmament”
 
By Robinson Jeffers (1934)
These grand and fatal movements toward death: the grandeur 
of the mass 
Makes pity a fool, the tearing pity 
For the atoms of the mass, the persons, the victims, makes it 
seem monstrous 
To admire the tragic beauty they build. 
It is beautiful as a river flowing or a slowly gathering 
Glacier on a high mountain rock-face, 
Bound to plow down a forest, or as frost in November, 
The gold and flaming death-dance for leaves, 
Or a girl in the night of her spent maidenhood, bleeding and 
kissing. 
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire 
To change the future ... I should do foolishly. The beauty 
of modern 
Man is not in the persons but in the 
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the 
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain.