Liebestod

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.

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Poems in English 

• A New Year’s Resolution to Leave Dundee by William Topaz McGonagall by Anglo File
• A Humble Heroine by William Topaz McGonagall by Anglo File
• A Descriptive Poem on the Silvery Tay by William Topaz McGonagall by Anglo File
• A Christmas Carol by William Topaz McGonagall by Anglo File
• On The Porch At The Frost Place, Franconia, N. H. by William Matthews by Anglo File
• On the Nativity of Christ by William Dunbar by William Dunbar
• On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines by William Vaughn Moody by Anglo File
• Ode to My Guitar by William Wright Harris by Anglo File
• No Return by William Matthews by Anglo File
• Mingus At The Showplace by William Matthews by Anglo File
• Memory by William Browne by Anglo File
• Lament for the Makers by William Dunbar by William Dunbar
• Job Interview by William Matthews by Anglo File
• In Honour of the City of London by William Dunbar by William Dunbar
• Homer’s Seeing-Eye Dog by William Matthews by Anglo File
• Gloucester Moods by William Vaughn Moody by Anglo File
• Earliest Spring by William Dean Howells by Anglo File
• Composed Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth by Anglo File
• Britannia’s Pastorals by William Browne by Anglo File
• Between the Dusk of a Summer Night by William Ernest Henley by Anglo File

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