American poet (1898-1943)
Even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
"The Devil and Daniel Webster"
Dreaming men are haunted men.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
John Brown's Body
When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
By the Waters of Babylon
Our earth is but a small star in a great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a pane unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color, or theory.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
prayer written for the United Nations Flag Day broadcast of Toward the Century of the Common Man on the NBC radio network, June 14, 1942
Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous,
Yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus,
See the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT, "Winged Man"
Young Adventure
For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without resurrection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons -- John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody -- oh, crack your mind for his name!
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
"Litany for Dictatorships", Young Adventure
Youth is the pollen
That blows through the sky
And does not ask why.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
John Brown's Body
Life was a storm to wander through.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
"The Quality of Courage"
Life is not lost by dying! Life is lost
Minute by minute, day by dragging day,
In all the thousand, small, uncaring ways,
The smooth appeasing compromises of time.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
A Child is Born
I have been in the Place of the Gods and seen it! Now slay me, if it is the law -- but still I know they were men.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
By the Waters of Babylon
You have taken my heart from me, sea-born eyes.
You have taken it, yes, but I do not know.
There are too many roads where I must go.
There are too many beds where I have slept
For a night unweeping, to quit unwept,
And it needs a king to marry the sea.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
John Brown's Body
I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp, gaunt names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
"American Names"
I'm waiting.... For something new and strange,
Something I've dreamt about in some deep sleep,
Truer than any waking.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
A Child is Born
We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.
Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth.
Our children know and suffer the armed men.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
"Litany for Dictatorships"
They are our last frontier.
They shot the railway-train when it first came,
And when the Fords first came, they shot the Fords.
It could not save them. They are dying now
Of being educated, which is the same.
One need not weep romantic tears for them,
But when the last moonshiner buys his radio,
And the last, lost, wild-rabbit of a girl
Is civilized with a mail-order dress,
Something will pass that was American
And all the movies will not bring it back.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
John Brown's Body
If two New Hampshiremen aren't a match for the devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
"The Devil and Daniel Webster"
I tried to think of my knowledge, but it was a squirrel's heap of winter nuts. There was no strength in my knowledge any more and I felt small and naked as a new-hatched bird.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
"By the Waters of Babylon"
There was sadness in being a man, but it was a proud thing too.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
The Devil and Daniel Webster
The ant finds kingdoms in a foot of ground.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
John Brown's Body
It is better the truth should come little by little. I have learned that, being a priest. Perhaps, in the old days, they ate knowledge too fast.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
"By the Waters of Babylon"