Stephen Vincent Benet

We had expected everything but
And I kind of wonder myself when they started thinking--But there’s no dice in that now.
I’ve heard fellow
They must have planned it for years and maybe they did.

(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.

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

The man was loved, the man was idolized,
The man had every just and noble gift.
He took great burdens and he bore them well,
Believed in God but did not preach too much

"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…

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,

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;

"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 against the dark,
Dark green, dusk red,…

Black trees against an orange sky,
Trees that the wind shook terribly,
Like a harsh spume along the road,
Quavering up like withered arms,

Or,
How Hill-Billy Jim Won The Great Fiddler’s Prize (A Georgia Romance)Up in the mountains, it's lonesome all the time,(Sof win' slewin' thu' the sweet-potato vine).
Up in the mountains, it's lonesome for a child,(Whippoorwills…

All night they marched, the infantrymen under pack,
But the hands gripping the rifles were naked bone
And the hollow pits of the eyes stared, vacant and black,
When the moonlight shone.The gas mask lay like a blot on the empty chest,…

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.

"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!

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 —…

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

(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…

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, kinked,
Like a sick serpent, seeming to…

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

I rained quite a lot, that spring.
You woke in the
And saw the sky still clouded, the streets still wet,
But nobody noticed so much, except the

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 . . .
Look! — oh look, look!

Some men live for warlike deeds,
Some for women’s words.
John James
Lived to look at birds.

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

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.

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;