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 

• The First Part: Sonnet 10 – Fair Moon, who with thy cold and silver shine by William Drummond by Anglo File
• The First Part: Sonnet 1 – In my first years, and prime yet not at height by William Drummond by Anglo File
• The Editor by William Ellery Leonard by Anglo File
• The Book Of The World by William Drummond by Anglo File
• The Beggar by William Ellery Leonard by Anglo File
• Reading by William Marr by Anglo File
• Premature Blindness by Winston Riley by Anglo File
• May-Night by William Ellery Leonard by Anglo File
• Man’s Knowledge – Ingorance in the Mysteries of God by William Drummond by Anglo File
• Indian Summer by William Ellery Leonard by Anglo File
• In the Small Hours by Wole Soyinka by Anglo File
• In Christ there is No East Or West by John Oxenham by Anglo File
• His Mercy Endureth For Ever by John Oxenham by Anglo File
• Harp Song of the Dane Women by Rudyard Kipling by Anglo File
• God Is Good by John Oxenham by Anglo File
• Gadara, A.D. 31 by John Oxenham by Anglo File
• Freemen by John Oxenham by Anglo File
• Free Men Of God by John Oxenham by Anglo File
• For the Men at the Front by John Oxenham by Anglo File
• Flowers Of The Dust by John Oxenham by Anglo File

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