DIFFERENCE
by: Stephen Vincent Benét
- Y 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 by 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.
'Difference' was originally published
by Stephen Vincent Benét in 1918. |
MORE POEMS BY BENÉT |
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