This Is My Beloved Hardcover - 1949

First line

Because hate is legislated ... written into the primer and the testament, shot into our blood and brain like vaccine or vitamins

From the rear cover

This Is My Beloved, the remarkable diary in verse that has become one of the most popular books of poetry, was his first published volume, though his work was already familiar to reader of Poetry, Fantasy, the Yale Review, and the New Republic.

Media reviews

"Never before has the delight and wonder experienced in young love, in which is implicit physical discovery, been conveyed with such touching honesty or with rhapsody so involving unconscious pathos. Those who seek to drag any honest writing through the gutters of their own minds will do the same with this. Those who are not afraid of the strange miracle of life will understand this brave verse."

-- William Rose Benet

"I certainly do not find these poems pornographic. They are direct and free, quick with life and warm with remembered passion. The imagery is sensuous and exact, but no more graphic -- or pornographic -- than the images in the Song of Songs. It is remarkable how Benton has varied the erotic theme and the overtones of physical love."

-- Louis Untermeyer

"Walter Benton's verse seems to me full of real poetic feeling. He has sometimes splendid images -- 'like God striking a match across the cathedral ceiling -- and other expressions of unusual beauty; and his emotional quality is direct and intense."

-- Van Wyck Brooks