The Great White Wall: 'Where hath he trespassed?''

By William Rose Benét

William Rose Benét was born on 2nd February 1886 in Brooklyn, New York.

For at least the previous two generations the family had distinguished itself in the military. But now Benét, along with his younger and more famous brother Stephen Vincent, would bring the Pulitzer Prize to the family’s history.

Benét was educated The Albany Academy in Albany and then Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, graduating with a Ph.B. in 1907. At Yale, he edited and contributed light verse to its on-campus humor magazine The Yale Record.

Later in 1924 he began the Saturday Review of Literature which he continued to edit and write for until his death.

He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1942 for his book of autobiographical verse, ‘The Dust Which Is God’ (1941). He is also the author of The Reader's Encyclopedia, a standard American guide to world literature.

Benét married four times. The first, to Teresa France Thomson in 1912, produced three children before her death in 1912. In 1923 he married the glamourous and very talented poet Elinor Wylie who died in 1928. A five-year marriage in 1932 preceded his marriage to the children’s writer Marjorie Flack in 1941.

William Rose Benét died on 4th May, 1950.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Sep 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781803540283

Book preview

The Great White Wall by William Rose Benét

 William Rose Benét was born on 2nd February 1886 in Brooklyn, New York.

For at least the previous two generations the family had distinguished itself in the military. But now Benét, along with his younger and more famous brother Stephen Vincent, would bring the Pulitzer Prize to the family’s history.

Benét was educated The Albany Academy in Albany and then Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, graduating with a Ph.B. in 1907. At Yale, he edited and contributed light verse to its on-campus humor magazine The Yale Record.

Later in 1924 he began the Saturday Review of Literature which he continued to edit and write for until his death.

He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1942 for his book of autobiographical verse, ‘The Dust Which Is God’ (1941). He is also the author of The Reader's Encyclopedia, a standard American guide to world literature.

Benét married four times. The first, to Teresa France Thomson in 1912, produced three children before her death in 1912.  In 1923 he married the glamourous and very talented poet Elinor Wylie who died in 1928. A five-year marriage in 1932 preceded his marriage to the children’s writer Marjorie Flack in 1941.

William Rose Benét died on 4th May, 1950.

Index of Contents

THE GREAT WHITE WALL

I—The Lion's Soul

II—The Camp Banquet

III—Visions on the March

IV—The Outer Wall

V—The Inner Wall

William Rose Benét - A Concise Bibliography

THE GREAT WHITE WALL

I

The Lion's Soul

Along the purple mountain chains

The smouldering crimson sunset ran.

It seemed to chant of him who reigns

Beyond all reach of caravan

"Genghiz Khan lies in the Mountain Altai,

The wild red Mongol raider, Genghis Khan!

"From the country of eternal dark

The great blue wolf of his fathers howls.

The Mountain Altai thrusts its stark

High buttress over the spreading cowls

Of obeisant shadows prone on the plain.

Passed is his violent crimson reign,

Genghiz Khan lies in the Mountain Altai.

Around his rock-hewn tomb the tiger prowls!

"Son of a stolen woman, born

By a river on a battle-night.

Ten thousand headmen heard his horn

Buffet the crags with echoes bright.

He scourged Al-addin and all Cathay,

And drank from Wang Khan's skull, they say,—

From Karakoram crouching sprang

To ravage the great walled land of Wang.

"Genghiz Khan lies in the Mountain Altai,

With his four strong sons whose names are swords that clang!"

The singer in Timur's tent dropped his throbbing drum.

Sepah Salar, great Lord, your slave is dumb!

With a bear's broad spread of breast, arched like a bow.

Long purple hair, fierce yellow eyes aglow.

He who had now attained Balkh's jewelled throne

Rose in his robes

"Go! I would