Author: Stephen Vincent Benet

After the whipping he crawled into bed, Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping. How funny uncle’s hat had […]

Eternally the choking steam goes up From the black pools of seething oil. . . . How merry Those little […]

Perhaps we go with wind and cloud and sun, Into the free companionship of air; Perhaps with sunsets when the […]

My friend went to the piano; spun the stool A little higher; left his pipe to cool; Picked up a […]

The little letters dance across the page, Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes; Sick of the strain, the […]

I am a shell. From me you shall not hear The splendid tramplings of insistent drums, The orbed gold of […]

The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits, The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates, […]

I shall go away To the brown hills, the quiet ones, The vast, the mountainous, the rolling, Sun-fired and drowsy! […]

Here, where men’s eyes were empty and as bright As the blank windows set in glaring brick, When the wind […]

(A Pharaoh Speaks.) I said, “Why should a pyramid Stand always dully on its base? I’ll change it! Let the […]

“But, sir,” I said, “they tell me the man is like to die!” The Canon shook his head indulgently. “Young […]

(For G. H.) Say, does that stupid earth Where they have laid her, Bind still her sullen mirth, Mirth which […]

Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron, Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked Over […]

Black trees against an orange sky, Trees that the wind shook terribly, Like a harsh spume along the road, Quavering […]

(A Virginia Legend.) The Planting of the Hemp. Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas (Black is the gap below the […]