Stanza 1 Summary

Lines 1-2

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens, 

• Any question as to where we are in this poem? Yeah, we didn't think so. Already we know that this is not going to be your apple pie-loving, baseball-cheering patriotic poem. Actually, Jeffers's publisher once provided a disclaimer in his collection The Double Axe that warned his readers of his "unpatriotic" poems, so no surprises here. 
• Our speaker tells us first that this America (remember, this poem came out in 1925) is just stewing in its own vulgarity and that this is due at least in part to its expanding empire. Ever known a high school football star that used to be cool until he got too hot for his britches and demanded all of the attention? That's kind of what the vibe is here.
• The metaphor the speaker uses (a "mould of vulgarity") makes us feel even ickier about the whole thing. We can either think of an actual mould (or mold, like to make bunt cakes) or that gross mold that grows along your windowsill. Either one is steeped in vulgarity, so there's no escaping the corruption here. Yuck.
• Poison cake or a creeping fungus, America isn't looking so good. And since the speaker says this mold continues to thicken we also know that we haven't seen the end of this growing corruption. 
• The word "empire" carries a not so tasteful ring to it. When we think of empires we tend to imagine dictators, emperors, Vaders, and other tyrants who care only about power and influence—pretty much the opposite of what a republic should be about. 
• By line 3, any kind of protest to indicate folks aren't so happy about the current state of the union is nothing but a little bubble that pops out of the mold. Then it hardens back into the gross mass of awfulness. This metaphor looks kinda like a bubble in glue that once it pops, just becomes part of the gooey mess again making no real difference.
• The "sighs out" part gives a feeling of the actual protesters amounting to little more than a sigh. Notice the speaker doesn't use the words "yell" or "revolt." The whole mood is more futile than that as if folks have already given up on the protest. 
• But what kind of "vulgarity" is the speaker referring to? We don't really know for sure, but the roaring twenties were known for being highly indulgent and lavish, to the point where people were literally rolling in money until it all came crashing down with the Great Depression.
• Interestingly, that Great Depression was often compared to a bubble bursting, so maybe our speaker was being a bit prophetic here, anticipating the bubble that would soon burst in 1929.