The Breaking Point
Stephen Vincent Benet 1898 (Bethlehem) – 1943 (New York City)
It was not when temptation came,
Swiftly and blastingly as flame,
And seared me white with burning scars;
When I stood up for age-long wars
And held the very Fiend at grips;
When all my mutinous body rose
To range itself beside my foes,
And, like a greyhound in the slips,
The Beast that dwells within me roared,
Lunging and straining at his cord. . . .
For all the blusterings of Hell,
It was not then I slipped and fell;
For all the storm, for all the hate,
I kept my soul inviolate!
But when the fight was fought and won,
And there was Peace as still as Death
On everything beneath the sun.
Just as I started to draw breath,
And yawn, and stretch, and pat myself,
-- The grass began to whisper things --
And every tree became an elf,
That grinned and chuckled counsellings:
Birds, beasts, one thing alone they said,
Beating and dinning at my head.
I could not fly. I could not shun it.
Slimily twisting, slow and blind,
It crept and crept into my mind.
Whispered and shouted, sneered and laughed,
Screamed out until my brain was daft. . . .
One snaky word, "What if you'd done it?"
And I began to think . . .
Ah, well,
What matter how I slipped and fell?
Or you, you gutter-searcher say!
Tell where you found me yesterday!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:08 min read
- 120 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABXCDDCEEFFXG HIHIJXJBKKGLLMMG XFFNN |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,233 |
Words | 228 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 16, 5 |
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"The Breaking Point" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/35814/the-breaking-point>.
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