Stephen Vincent Benét Quotes

The ant finds kingdoms in a foot of ground.

Something begins, begins; Starlit and sunlit, something walks abroad In flesh and spirit and fire. Something is loosed to change the shaken world.

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.

Perhaps 'tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence … but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster.

You will have money and all that money can buy.

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.

I stumbled, slipped... and all was gone That I had gained. Once more I lay Before the long bright Hell of ice. And still the light was far away. There was red mist before my eyes Or I could tell you how I went Across the swaying firmament, A glittering torture of cold stars, And how I fought in Titan wars... And died... and lived again upon The rack... and how the horses strain When their red task is nearly done. . . <p> I only know that there was Pain, Infinite and eternal Pain. And that I fell — and rose again.

God pity us indeed, for we are human, And do not always see The vision when it comes, the shining change, Or, if we see it, do not follow it, Because it is too hard, too strange, too new, Too unbelievable, too difficult, Warring too much with common, easy ways, And now I know this, standing in this light, Who have been half alive these many years, Brooding on my own sorrow, my own pain, Saying "I am a barren bough. Expect Nor fruit nor blossom from a barren bough."

I went north — I did not try to hide myself. When a god or a demon saw me, then I would die, but meanwhile I was no longer afraid. My hunger for knowledge burned in me — there was so much that I could not understand.

It's a story they tell in the border country, where Massachusetts joins Vermont and New Hampshire. Yes, Dan'l Webster's dead — or, at least, they buried him. But every time there's a thunderstorm around Marshfield, they say you can hear his rolling voice in the hollows of the sky. And they say that if you go to his grave and speak loud and clear, "Dan'l Webster — Dan'l Webster!" the ground'll begin to shiver and the trees begin to shake. And after a while you'll hear a deep voice saying, "Neighbor, how stands the Union?" Then you better answer the Union stands as she stood, rock-bottomed and copper-sheathed, one and indivisible, or he's liable to rear right out of the ground. At least, that's what I was told when I was a youngster.

He knew that once you bested anybody like Mr. Scratch in fair fight, his power on you was gone. And he could see that Mr. Scratch knew it too.

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.

Was it not better so to lie? The fight was done. Even gods tire Of fighting... My way was the wrong. Now I should drift and drift along To endless quiet, golden peace... And let the tortured body cease. And then a light winked like an eye. . . . And very many miles away A girl stood at a warm, lit door, Holding a lamp. Ray upon ray It cloaked the snow with perfect light. And where she was there was no night Nor could be, ever. God is sure, And in his hands are things secure.