Poems by Stephen Vincent Benet

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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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 of tattered cloud before

In scorning; very pure and pale she seemed,

Flooding his bed with radiance. On the floor

Fat motes danced. He sobbed, closed his eyes and dreamed.

by Stephen Vincent Benet

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 my mutinous body rose

To range itself beside my foes,

And, like a greyhound in the slips,

by Stephen Vincent Benet

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 spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.

There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise,

The man who chained the Minotaur, the man who built the Maze.

His young son is beside him and the boy's face is a light,

A light of dawn and wonder and of valor infinite.

by Stephen Vincent Benet

Campus Sonnets: Return - 1917

"The College will reopen Sept. —." `Catalogue'.

I was just aiming at the jagged hole

Torn in the yellow sandbags of their trench,

When something threw me sideways with a wrench,

And the skies seemed to shrivel like a scroll

And disappear . . . and propped against the bole

Of a big elm I lay, and watched the clouds

Float through the blue, deep sky in speckless crowds,

by Stephen Vincent Benet

Metropolitan Nightmare

I rained quite a lot, that spring. You woke in the morning

And saw the sky still clouded, the streets still wet,

But nobody noticed so much, except the taxis

And the people who parade. You don't, in a city.

The parks got very green. All the trees were green

Far into July and August, heavy with leaf,

Heavy with leaf and the long roots were boring and spreading,

But nobody noticed that but the city gardeners

by Stephen Vincent Benet

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, dry colors! Well" — he led

To a dim alley lined with musty bins,

And pulled one fiercely. Violent and bold

A sudden tempest of mad, shrieking sins

by Stephen Vincent Benet

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 as there are brown hills — and a tree

Like a mad prophet in a land of dearth —

And I can lie and hear eternally

The vast monotonous breathing of the earth.

by Stephen Vincent Benet

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

by Stephen Vincent Benet

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

Unseen by any. Toward the further woods

A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased.

— We were most silent in those solitudes —

Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest,

by Stephen Vincent Benet

Campus Sonnets: 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 maunderings of a long dead sage,

Fling up the windows, fling aside his lies;

Choosing to breathe, not stifle and be wise,

And let the air pour in upon my cage.

by Stephen Vincent Benet

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 come thick;

By the deserted paths, the vacant halls,

One may see figures, twisted shades and lean,

Like the mad shapes that crawl an Indian screen,

Or paunchy smears you find on prison walls.

by Stephen Vincent Benet

The Congressmen Came Out To See Bull Run

The congressmen came out to see Bull Run,

The congressmen who like free shows and spectacles.

They brought their wives and carriages along,

They brought their speeches and their picnic-lunch,

Their black constituent-hats and their devotion:

Some even brought a little whiskey, too.

(A little whiskey is a comforting thing

For congressmen in the sun, in the heat of the sun.)

by Stephen Vincent Benet