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

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

Rain After a Vaudeville Show

The last pose flickered, failed. The screen’s dead white Glared in a sudden flooding of harsh light Stabbing the eyes; and as I stumbled out The curtain rose. A fat girl with a pout

Colors

(For D. M. C.) The little man with the vague beard and guise Pulled at the wicket. “Come inside!” he said, “I’ll show you all we’ve got now it was size You wanted? oh,

The White Peacock

(France Ancient Regime.) I. Go away! Go away; I will not confess to you! His black biretta clings like a hangman’s cap; under his twitching fingers the beads shiver and click, As he mumbles

Talk

Tobacco smoke drifts up to the dim ceiling From half a dozen pipes and cigarettes, Curling in endless shapes, in blue rings wheeling, As formless as our talk. Phil, drawling, bets Cornell will win

May Morning

I lie stretched out upon the window-seat And doze, and read a page or two, and doze, And feel the air like water on me close, Great waves of sunny air that lip and

Love in Twilight

There is darkness behind the light and the pale light drips Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships And the firelight wavers and changes

The General Public

“Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?” Browning. “Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then,” The old man said. A dry smile creased his face With many wrinkles. “That’s a great poem, now!

Going Back to School

The boat ploughed on. Now Alcatraz was past And all the grey waves flamed to red again At the dead sun’s last glimmer. Far and vast The Sausalito lights burned suddenly In little dots

Portrait of a Baby

He lay within a warm, soft world Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, Wave upon wave that broke and whirled To vanish in the grey-green gloom, Perspectiveless and shadowy.

Poor Devil!

Well, I was tired of life; the silly folk, The tiresome noises, all the common things I loved once, crushed me with an iron yoke. I longed for the cool quiet and the dark,

Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room

Soup should be heralded with a mellow horn, Blowing clear notes of gold against the stars; Strange entrees with a jangle of glass bars Fantastically alive with subtle scorn; Fish, by a plopping, gurgling

The City Revisited

The grey gulls drift across the bay Softly and still as flakes of snow Against the thinning fog. All day I sat and watched them come and go; And now at last the sun

The Breaking Point

It was not when temptation came, Swiftly and blastingly as flame, And seared me white with burning scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all

Lonely Burial

There were not many at that lonely place, Where two scourged hills met in a little plain. The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again. Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race

Alexander VI Dines with the Cardinal of Capua

Next, then, the peacock, gilt With all its feathers. Look, what gorgeous dyes Flow in the eyes! And how deep, lustrous greens are splashed and spilt Along the back, that like a sea-wave’s crest

Dedication

To W. R. B. And so, to you, who always were Perseus, D’Artagnan, Lancelot To me, I give these weedy rhymes In memory of earlier times. Now all those careless days are not. Of

The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun

“Oh yes, I went over to Edmonstoun the other day and saw Johnny, mooning around as usual! He will never make his way.” Letter of George Keats, 18 Night falls; the great jars glow