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:
- If Truth In Hearts That Perish
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Смерть
- Going Back to School by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Girl-Gladness poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Владимир Британишский – Лето 1845 года в Соколове
- Alone by Siegfried Sassoon
- Ibant Obscur? by Thomas Edward Brown
- Inscriptions In The Ground Of Coleorton, The Seat Of Sir George Beaumont, Bart., Leicestershire by William Wordsworth
- A Portrait Of 1783 poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Sick Leave by Siegfried Sassoon
- Алишер Навои – О, мне бы крылья
- An Epitaph poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- He is more than a hero by Sappho
- Monody on a Lady, famed for her Caprice by Robert Burns
- A daily prayer by a kid by Sunil Sharma
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
- For Sale by Shel Silverstein
- Folk Singer’s Blues by Shel Silverstein
- Father Of A Boy Named Sue by Shel Silverstein
- Everybody’s Makin’ It Big But Me by Shel Silverstein
- Enter This Deserted House by Shel Silverstein
- Dreadful by Shel Silverstein
- Don’t Give A Dose To The One You Love Most by Shel Silverstein
- Dirty Ol’ Me by Shel Silverstein
- Dance To It by Shel Silverstein
- Crouchin’ On The Outside by Shel Silverstein
- Crocodile’s Toothache by Shel Silverstein
- Come Skating by Shel Silverstein
- Come After Jinny by Shel Silverstein
- Colors by Shel Silverstein
- Cloudy Sky by Shel Silverstein
- Clarence by Shel Silverstein
- Channels by Shel Silverstein
- Changing Of The Seasons by Shel Silverstein
- Captain Hook by Shel Silverstein
- Bury Me In My Shades by Shel Silverstein
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.