Stella Benson

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Stella Benson Biography

Stella Benson (1892–1933) was an English feminist, travel writer, and novelist. Benson was born to Ralph Beaumont Benson (1862-1911), a member of the landed gentry, and Caroline Essex Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley) at Lutwyche Hall in Shropshire in 1892. Stella's aunt, Mary Cholmondeley, was a novelist. Stella was often ill during her childhood. By her sixth birthday, she and her family, based in London, had moved frequently. She spent some of her childhood in Germany and Switzerland getting an education. She began writing a diary at the age of ten and kept it up for all of her life. By the time she was writing poetry, around the age of fourteen, her mother left her father; consequently, she saw her father infrequently. When she did see him, he encouraged her to quit writing poetry for the time being, until she was older and more experienced. Instead, Stella increased her writing output, adding novel-writing to her repertoire. When her father died, Stella learned that he had been an alcoholic.)

The Best Poem Of Stella Benson

If You Were Careless

IF you were careless ever, if ever a thing you missed
In the forest—a serpent twist
Of shadow, ensnaring the star-lit way of a tree;
If at your wrist
The pulse rang never, never, to the slow bells of the sea;
If a star, quick-carven in frost and in amethyst,
Shone on the thin, thin finger of dawn, you turning away your face:

You shall be sorry, sorry, for when you die,
Those three
Shall follow and follow and find you
As you go through the Difficult Place.
The strong snake-shadows shall bind you,
The swords of the stars shall blind you,
And the terrible bells of the sea shall crash and cry;
The bells of the sea shall ring you out from under the sky,
In a lost grave to lie
Under the ashes of space.
Ah, never look back, run fast, you impotent passer-by!—
Those three
Run behind you.

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