A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)
I who, conceived beneath another star,
Had been a prince and played with life, instead
Have been its slave, an outcast exiled far
From the fair things my faith has merited.
My ways have been the ways that wanderers tread
And those that make romance of poverty —
Soldier, I shared the soldier’s board and bed,
And Joy has been a thing more oft to me
Whispered by summer wind and summer sea
Than known incarnate in the hours it lies
All warm against our hearts and laughs into our eyes.
I know not if in risking my best days
I shall leave utterly behind me here
This dream that lightened me through lonesome ways
And that no disappointment made less dear;
Sometimes I think that, where the hilltops rear
Their white entrenchments back of tangled wire,
Behind the mist Death only can make clear,
There, like Brunhilde ringed with flaming fire,
Lies what shall ease my heart’s immense desire:
There, where beyond the horror and the pain
Only the brave shall pass, only the strong attain.
Truth or delusion, be it as it may,
Yet think it true, dear friends, for, thinking so,
That thought shall nerve our sinews on the day
When to the last assault our bugles blow:
Reckless of pain and peril we shall go,
Heads high and hearts aflame and bayonets bare,
And we shall brave eternity as though
Eyes looked on us in which we would seem fair —
One waited in whose presence we would wear,
Even as a lover who would be well-seen,
Our manhood faultless and our honor clean.
A few random poems:
- (Inner Tube) by Michael Ondaatje
- Easter Morning poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Childless Father by William Wordsworth
- There Were Dry Red Days by Sharmagne Leland-St. John
- Feelings Of A Noble Biscayan At One Of Those Funerals by William Wordsworth
- Lead Soldiers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – Точеные слоны
- Another On The Same poem – John Milton poems
- The Ballad Of The Foxhunter by William Butler Yeats
- Robert Burns: Epistle To John Goldie, In Kilmarnock: Author Of The Gospel Recovered.
- Илья Эренбург – Вы приняли меня в изысканной гостиной
- The Night Dances by Sylvia Plath
- A Story At Dusk
- Future Verdict
- The Song For Colin by Sara Teasdale
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- A Young Soul
- Winter039s Fall
- Tonic For Victory
- The Tiger039s Roar
- The New Path
- Rain Falls
- Peace Or Glory
- Have Lost You
- Further You Go Longer You Stay
- Frozen Heart 2
- Fears Get Away
- Dreamer
- Don039t Lose Hope
- Counting My Past
- A Friend Forever
- Your Dream
- When I Married Halld R Laxness
- What Peace Is Like
- Upside Down
- Unrequited Pathological
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Alan Seeger (1888-1916) was an American war poet who fought and died in World War I during the Battle of the Somme, serving in the French Foreign Legion. Seeger was the brother of Charles Seeger, a noted American pacifist and musicologist and the uncle of folk musician, Pete Seeger.