May Morning Poem by Stephen Vincent Benet

May Morning

Rating: 3.2


I lie stretched out upon the window-seat
And doze, and read a page or two, and doze,
And feel the air like water on me close,
Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat
With a small noise, monotonous and sweet,
Against the window -- and the scent of cool,
Frail flowers by some brown and dew-drenched pool
Possesses me from drowsy head to feet.

This is the time of all-sufficing laughter
At idiotic things some one has done,
And there is neither past nor vague hereafter.
And all your body stretches in the sun
And drinks the light in like a liquid thing;
Filled with the divine languor of late spring.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Frank Avon 24 August 2014

I guess I've known Benet only for John Brown's Body. I shall seek out more of his lyrics. This one captures May and youth and languor aptly. I live in these lines: And all your body stretches in the sun And drinks the light in like a liquid thing; Filled with the divine languor of late spring. How one longs for those days, years ago. before carcinoma and melanoma and such witches, when one could stretch one's naked limbs and drink in the cleansing sun and purge those the vitriolic poisons for the long winer.

1 1 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Stephen Vincent Benet

Stephen Vincent Benet

Pennsylvania / United States
Close
Error Success