Stephen Vincent Benet

This person in the gaudy
Is worthy Captain Kidd
They say he never buried gold
I think, perhaps, he did

And so, to you, who always were Perseus,
D'Artagnan,
Lancelot To me,
I give these weedy rhymes In memory of earlier times

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,

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 the relay in a walk,

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

Army of Northern Virginia, army of legend,
Who were your captains that you could trust them so surely
Who were your battle-flags
Call the shapes from the mist,

(For D
M
C
) The little man with the vague beard and guise Pulled at the wicket

All night they marched, the infantrymen under pack,
But the hands gripping the rifles were naked
And the hollow pits of the eyes stared, vacant and black,
When the moonlight shone

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 beat With a small noise, monotonous and sweet,
Against the window — ...

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 Scatters soft beauty o'er th' emblazoned brea...

I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,

"The College will reopen Sept
—
" `Catalogue'
I was just aiming at the jagged hole Torn in the yellow sandbags of their trench,