Fire On The Hills Analysis

Mother Nature is responsible for many beauties that we enjoy and observe in awe in today. Whether that beauty may be found in an enchanted pasture that has an abundant amount of flowers or as simple as a tall tree, it is beautiful regardless. In “Fire on the Hills”, poet Robinson Jeffers offers a different perspective of beauty, not by embracing life, but destruction. Jeffers justifies this by saying that “Beauty is not always lovely”. To Jeffers, the image of a burned forest and death is a form of beauty in itself. “Fire on the hills” can easily be classified as a dark poem about the beauty in destruction. The task of the reader is to explore as to why the Jeffers feels this way or at least try to comprehend it. Without looking up information about the poet himself, it may be difficult to draw conclusions. In order to properly understand and analyze this poem, the setting, the tone, and the mood must be looked at first.
This poem takes place in what seems to be a forest, filled with animals. This is supported in the first line of the poem when Jeffers describes, “The deer were bounding like blown leaves”. Blown leaves are usually moving in the same direction very closely. The deer is moving live blown leaves in order to escape the fire that was behind them. “I thought of the smaller lives that were caught” is what Jeffers says as he or the narrator describes what is transcribing in front of them. The fire spared no one, and consumed everything in its path; the once