Difference
My mind’s a map.
A mad sea-captain drew it Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked as jugs,
And states bright-patterned like Arabian rugs. “Here there be tygers.” “Here we buried Jim.” Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim About their buried idol, drowned so cold He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold.
A country like the dark side of the moon,
A cider-apple country, harsh and boon,
A country savage as a chestnut-rind,
A land of hungry sorcerers. Your mind? —Your mind is water through an April night,
A cherry-branch, plume-feathery with its white,
A lavender as fragrant as your words,
A room where Peace and Honor talk like birds,
Sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth Of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth,
Flutters and beats about those lovely things.
You are the soul, enchanted with its wings,
The single voice that raises up the dead To shake the pride of angels. I have said.
Stephen Vincent Benet
Other author posts
Elegy For An Enemy
(For G H ) Say, does that stupid earth Where they have laid her, Bind still her sullen mirth,
Colors
(For D M C ) The little man with the vague beard and guise Pulled at the wicket
The Falconer Of God
I flung my soul to the air like a falcon flying I said, “Wait on, wait on, while I ride below I shall start a heron soon In the marsh beneath the moon— A strange white heron rising with silver on its wings, Rising and crying Wordless, wo...
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
