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 Blessed by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Black Tower by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Balloon Of The Mind by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Ballad Of The Foxhunter by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Ballad Of Moll Magee by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Ballad Of Father O’Hart by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Ballad Of Father Gilligan by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Arrow by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Apparitions by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• That The Night Come by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Symbols by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Swift’s Epitaph by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Sweet Dancer by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Supernatural Songs by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Stream And Sun At Glendalough by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Statistics by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Spilt Milk by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Song For The Severed Head In `The King Of The Great Clock Tower’ by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Solomon To Sheba by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• Solomon And The Witch by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats

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