A Minor Poet

I am a shell. From me you shall not hear
The splendid tramplings of insistent drums,
The orbed gold of the viol's voice that comes,
Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear.
Yet, if you hold me close against the ear,
A dim, far whisper rises clamorously,
The thunderous beat and passion of the sea,
The slow surge of the tides that drown the mere.

Others with subtle hands may pluck the strings,
Making even Love in music audible,
And earth one glory. I am but a shell
That moves, not of itself, and moving sings;
Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed,
A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.

Stephen Vincent Benét

Stephen Vincent Benét was born on July 22, 1898, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was an influential 20th-century American poet and short story writer. Known for his extensive historical narratives in verse, his most notable work is perhaps 'John Brown’s Body,' which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1929. Benét's writings often delved into American Civil War themes and other significant events in the nation's history. He died on March 13, 1943.

Stephen Vincent Benét

Campus Sonnets: 1. Before An Examination

Stephen Vincent Benét, Simple Poetry

The Breaking Point

Stephen Vincent Benét, Simple Poetry

Elegy For An Enemy

Stephen Vincent Benét, Simple Poetry

Road And Hills

Stephen Vincent Benét, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Shell.

From what rock-hollow'd cavern deep in ocean,
    Where jagged columns break the billow's beat,
Whirl'd upward by some wild mid-world commotion,
    Has this rose-tinted shell steer'd to my feet?

Perchance the wave that bore it has rejoiced
    Above Man's founder'd hopes, and shatter'd pride,
Whilst fierce Euroclydon swept, trumpet-voiced,
    Through the frail spars, and hurl'd them in the tide,
    And the lost seamen floated at its side!

Ah! thus too oft do Woe and Beauty meet,
    Swept onward by the self-same tide of fate,
The bitter following swift upon the sweet,
    Close, close together, yet how separate!

Frail waif from the sublime storm-shaken sea,
    Thou seem'st the childhood toy of some old king,
Who 'mid the shock of nations light...

Walter R. Cassels

A Shell.

Oh, take this shell, this pretty thing
    With tinted waves of pearly red;
Hold close your ear and hear it sing,
    Then tell me what its voice hath said.
    A song of surges deep and strong,
    A song of summer sweet and long,
    A sound of storm and wind and rain,
    A sound of joy--a glad refrain.

O plaything of the idle sea,
    Whence come these changing tints of thine?
Have sunset clouds looked down on thee
    And stained thee with their hues divine?
    Oh, tell the secrets thou must know
    Of clouds above and waves below;
    Oh, whisper of the bending sky
    And ocean caves where jewels lie.

O beauteous sea-shell, tinged with red,
    What dost thou know; what canst thou tell?
Unto what mysteries are thou wed,
    ...

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

Music

My friend went to the piano; spun the stool
A little higher; left his pipe to cool;
Picked up a fat green volume from the chest;
And propped it open.
Whitely without rest,
His fingers swept the keys that flashed like swords,
... And to the brute drums of barbarian hordes,
Roaring and thunderous and weapon-bare,
An army stormed the bastions of the air!
Dreadful with banners, fire to slay and parch,
Marching together as the lightnings march,
And swift as storm-clouds. Brazen helms and cars
Clanged to a fierce resurgence of old wars
Above the screaming horns. In state they passed,
Trampling and splendid on and sought the vast --
Rending the darkness like a leaping knife,
The flame, the noble pageant of our life!
The burning seal that stamps man's high indent...

Stephen Vincent Benét

Letter to Sainte-Beuve

On the old oak benches, more shiny and polished
than links of a chain that were, each day, burnished
rubbed by our human flesh, we, still un-bearded,
trailed our ennui, hunched, round-shouldered,
under the four-square heaven of solitude,
where a child drinks studys tart ten-year brew.
It was in those days, outstanding and memorable,
when the teachers, forced to loosen our classical
fetters, yet all still hostile to your rhyming,
succumbed to the pressure of our mad duelling,
and allowed a triumphant, mutinous, pupil
to make Triboulet howl in Latin, at will.
Which of us in those days of pale adolescence
didnt share the weary torpor of confinement,
eyes lost in the dreary blue of a summer sky
or the snowfalls whiteness, we were dazzled by,
ears pricked, eager...

Charles Baudelaire

Lines Written In The Bay Of Lerici.

She left me at the silent time
When the moon had ceased to climb
The azure path of Heaven's steep,
And like an albatross asleep,
Balanced on her wings of light,
Hovered in the purple night,
Ere she sought her ocean nest
In the chambers of the West.
She left me, and I stayed alone
Thinking over every tone
Which, though silent to the ear,
The enchanted heart could hear,
Like notes which die when born, but still
Haunt the echoes of the hill;
And feeling ever - oh, too much! -
The soft vibration of her touch,
As if her gentle hand, even now,
Lightly trembled on my brow;
And thus, although she absent were,
Memory gave me all of her
That even Fancy dares to claim: -
Her presence had made weak and tame
All passions, and I lived alone

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Chopin.

    I.


A    dream of interlinking hands, of feet
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof,
Of the entangling waltz.    Bright eyebeams meet,
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof.
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, dazzling snow
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms.
Hark to the music!    How beneath the strain
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs
One fundamental chord of constant pain,
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice,
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice.



    II.


Who shall proclaim the golden fable false
Of Orpheus' miracles?    This subtl...

Emma Lazarus