William Rose Benét
William Rose Benét was born at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, February 2, 1886. He was educated at Albany Academy and graduated from Yale in 1907. After various experiences as free-lance writer, publisher’s reader, magazine editor and second lieutenant in the U. S. Air Service, Benét became the Associate Editor of the New York Post’s Literary Review in 1920.
The outstanding feature of Benét’s verse is its extraordinary whimsicality; an oriental imagination riots through his pages. Like the title-poem of his first volume, Merchants from Cathay (1913), all of Benét’s volumes vibrate with a vigorous music; they are full of the sonorous stuff that one rolls out crossing wintry fields or tramping a road alone.
But Benét’s charm is not confined to the lift and swing of rollicking choruses. His The Falconer of God (1914), The Great White Wall (1916) and The Burglar of the Zodiac (1918) contain decorations as bold as they are brilliant; they ring with a strange and spicy music evoked from seemingly casual words; they glow with a half-lurid, half-humorous reflection of the grotesque. There are times when Benét seems to be forcing his ingenuity. The poet frequently lets his fantastic Pegasus run away with him, and what started out to be a gallop among the stars ends in a scraping of shins on the pavement. But he is saved by an acrobatic dexterity even when his energy betrays him.
Moons of Grandeur (1920) represents the fullest development of Benét’s unusual gifts; a combination of Eastern phantasy and Western vigor.
Merchants From Cathay
Their heels slapped their bumping mules; their fat chaps glowed.|How that
They came.|
Glory unto Mary, each seemed to wear a crown!
Like sunset their robes were on the wide, white road:
So we saw those mad merchants come dusting into town!
Two paunchy beasts they rode on and two they drove before. |Of their
Beasts,|
May the Saints all help us, the tiger-stripes they had!
And the panniers upon them swelled full of stuffs and ore!
The square buzzed and jostled at a sight so mad.
They bawled in their beards, and their turbans they wried. |And their
Boast,|
They stopped by the stalls with curvetting and clatter.
As bronze as the bracken their necks and faces dyed—
And a stave they sat singing, to tell us of the matter.
“For your silks, to Sugarmago! For your dyes, to Isfahan! |With its
Burthen|
Weird fruits from the Isle o’ Lamaree.
But for magic merchandise,
For treasure-trove and spice,
Here’s a catch and a carol to the great, grand Chan,
The King of all the Kings across the sea!
“Here’s a catch and a carol to the great, grand Chan; |And
Chorus.|
For we won through the deserts to his sunset barbican;
And the mountains of his palace no Titan’s reach may span
Where he wields his seignorie!
“Red-as-blood skins of Panthers, so bright against the sun |A first
Stave
Fearsome,|
On the walls of the halls where his pillared state is set
They daze with a blaze no man may look upon.
And with conduits of beverage those floors run wet.
“His wives stiff with riches, they sit before him there. |And a second
Right hard
To stomach|
Bird and beast at his feast make song and clapping cheer.
And jugglers and enchanters, all walking on the air,
Make fall eclipse and thunder—make moons and suns appear!
“Once the Chan, by his enemies soreprest, and sorely spent, |And a third,
Which is a
Laughable
Thing.|
Lay, so they say, in a thicket ’neath a tree
Where the howl of an owl vexed his foes from their intent:
Then that fowl for a holy bird of reverence made he!
“A catch and a carol to the great, grand Chan! |We gape to
Hear them end,|
Pastmasters of disasters, our desert caravan
Won through all peril to his sunset barbican,
Where he wields his seignorie!
And crowns he gave us! We end where we began:
A catch and a carol to the great, grand Chan,
The King of all the Kings across the sea!”
Those mad, antic Merchants!... Their stripèd beasts did beat |And are in
Terror,|
The market-square suddenly with hooves of beaten gold!
The ground yawned gaping and flamed beneath our feet!
They plunged to Pits Abysmal with their wealth untold!
And some say the Chan himself in anger dealt the stroke— |And dread it is
Devil’s Work!|
For sharing of his secrets with silly, common folk:
But Holy, Blessed Mary, preserve us as you may
Lest once more those mad Merchants come chanting from Cathay!
Night 54
Let the night keep
What the night takes,
Sighs buried deep,
Ancient heart-aches,
Groans of the lover,
Tears of the lost;
Let day discover not
All the night cost!
Let the night keep
Love’s burning bliss,
Drowned in deep sleep
Whisper and kiss,
Thoughts like white flowers
In hedges of May;
Let such deep hours not
Fade with the day!
Monarch is night
Of all eldest things,
Pain and affright,
Rapturous wings;
Night the crown, night the sword
Lifted to smite.
Kneel to your overlord,
Children of night!
How to Catch Unicorns
Its cloven hoofprint on the sand
Will lead you—where?
Into a phantasmagoric land—
Beware!
There all the bright streams run up-hill.
The birds on every tree are still.
But from stocks and stones, clear voices come
That should be dumb.
If you have taken along a net,
A noose, a prod,
You’ll be waiting in the forest yet...
Nid—nod!
In a virgin’s lap the beast slept sound,
They say... but I—
I think (Is anyone around?)
That’s just a lie!
If you have taken a musketoon
To flinders ’twill flash ’neath the wizard moon.
So I should take browned batter-cake,
Hot-buttered inside, like foam to flake.
And I should take an easy heart
And a whimsical face,
And a tied-up lunch of sandwich and tart,
And spread a cloth in the open chase.
And then I should pretend to snore...
And I’d hear a snort and I’d hear a roar,
The wind of a mane and a tail, and four
Wild hoofs prancing the forest-floor.
And I’d open my eyes on a flashing horn—
And see the Unicorn!
Paladins fierce and virgins sweet...
But he’s never had anything to eat!
Knights have tramped in their iron-mong’ry...
But nobody thought—that’s all!—he’s hungry!
ADDENDUM
Really hungry! Good Lord deliver us,
The Unicorn is not carnivorous!