Stephen Vincent Benet
Portrait of a Boy
After the whipping he crawled into bed, Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping. How funny uncle’s hat had looked striped red! He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping A black, frayed rag
The Lover in Hell
Eternally the choking steam goes up From the black pools of seething oil. . . . How merry Those little devils are! They’ve stolen the pitchfork From Bel, there, as he slept. . .
Nos Immortales
Perhaps we go with wind and cloud and sun, Into the free companionship of air; Perhaps with sunsets when the day is done, All’s one to me I do not greatly care; So long
Music
My friend went to the piano; spun the stool A little higher; left his pipe to cool; Picked up a fat green volume from the chest; And propped it open. Whitely without rest, His
Before an Examination
The little letters dance across the page, Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes; Sick of the strain, the glaring light, I rise Yawning and stretching, full of empty rage At the dull
A Minor Poet
I am a shell. From me you shall not hear The splendid tramplings of insistent drums, The orbed gold of the viol’s voice that comes, Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear. Yet, if you
Winged Man
The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits, The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates, The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar, Where first two men
Road and Hills
I shall go away To the brown hills, the quiet ones, The vast, the mountainous, the rolling, Sun-fired and drowsy! My horse snuffs delicately At the strange wind; He settles to a swinging trot;
Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum
Here, where men’s eyes were empty and as bright As the blank windows set in glaring brick, When the wind strengthens from the sea and night Drops like a fog and makes the breath
The Innovator
(A Pharaoh Speaks.) I said, “Why should a pyramid Stand always dully on its base? I’ll change it! Let the top be hid, The bottom take the apex-place!” And as I bade they did.
Young Blood
“But, sir,” I said, “they tell me the man is like to die!” The Canon shook his head indulgently. “Young blood, Cousin,” he boomed. “Young blood! Youth will be served!” D’Hermonville’s Fabliaux. He woke
Elegy for an Enemy
(For G. H.) Say, does that stupid earth Where they have laid her, Bind still her sullen mirth, Mirth which betrayed her? Do the lush grasses hold, Greenly and glad, That brittle-perfect gold She
The Fiddling Wood
Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron, Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked Over the rough crest of the hairy wood In angry scorn; the grey road twisted,
The Quality of Courage
Black trees against an orange sky, Trees that the wind shook terribly, Like a harsh spume along the road, Quavering up like withered arms, Writhing like streams, like twisted charms Of hot lead flung
The Hemp
(A Virginia Legend.) The Planting of the Hemp. Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas (Black is the gap below the plank) From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees (Down by the marsh the