Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Price

William Rose Benét

What is it you buy with so much blood

And so much sorrow?

A thing but darkly understood—

We buy Tomorrow.

Why is it you sow with blasting flame

To reap with passion?

When was it then that a good thing came

In an easy fashion?

Have you not also fallen and sinned?

You are sin to the marrow!

We are but as straws that show the wind,

As blades to the harrow.

Iniquity, iniquity,

Though much befriended,

Yet it shall perish utterly;

It shall be ended!

Do you see then an end of wars,

An end of weeping?

We see the reticent ranks of stars

Shine on our sleeping.

We hear the great earth sigh and turn,

And the seas sighing;

And the angry sunsets flame and burn

With old dreams dying.

But earlier than the early dawn,

So chill, so grayly,

Comes that which never is withdrawn,

Comes to us daily,

Comes to us, after every mood

Of pain or passion—

The certitude, the certitude

Of what we fashion!

Are you so devout, who never trod

’Neath spire or steeple?

But we have spoken with our God,

The God of the People.

Our blood the dye, his robe the sod

That we lie under;

We have heard the still voice of our God

Through flame and thunder.

What are these wild words of some change

You bring to being?

We only know it shall be strange

Beyond foreseeing!

We have lain down, we have stood up

(Past all dissembling!)

With Death, with Death. We have quaffed the cup,

The cup of trembling …

So we but whisper brokenly,

As dead men do,

The great strange things that are to be,

That shall come true.

For we are blinded, and we see;

Deaf, and have ears;

Despoiled, and co-heirs perfectly

Of coming years.

Life higher than we ever thought,

Deeper than death—

This with our life-blood we have bought,

With our vain breath.

Over fire-curtained slime of the fen,

Through insensate clamor,

We have heard the building thoughts of men

Hammer and hammer.

We have heard the splitting of codes apart,

The ripping of glamour

Like colored curtains, and Man’s strong heart

Hammer and hammer.

We have heard the sledges of a state

Beyond our hoping

Thunder and thunder. We are great

Who once were groping.

Out of the slag and fume of the pit

We have seen uprearing

A blinding witness; because of it

We are done with fearing.

Out of the bowels of Hell-on-earth

We have seen upstraining

A winged archangel of rebirth

Too strong for chaining.

Now ours is the strength, ours is the might—

Yea, by these powers,

Ours is the earth for light and right,

And the future ours,

Who have rent our hearts, our blood outpoured,

Who have drunk all sorrow,

Who have found our strength, walked with our Lord,

And bought Tomorrow!