The Palace
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) From roof to roof the spacious palace halls Glitter with war’s array; With burnished metal clad, the lofty walls Beam like the bright noonday. There white-plumed helmets hang from many a nail, Above, in threatening row; Steel-garnished tunics and broad coats of mail Spread […]
Storm
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) Now here, now there, the wild waves sweep, Whilst we, betwixt them o’er the deep, In shatter’d tempest-beaten bark, With laboring ropes are onward driven, The billows dashing o’er our dark Upheaved deck–in tatters riven Our sails–whose yawning rents between The raging sea and […]
Poor Fisherman
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) The fisher Diotimus had, at sea And shore, the same abode of poverty– His trusty boat;–and when his days were spent, Therein self-rowed to ruthless Dis he went; For that, which did through life his woes beguile, Supplied the old man with a funeral […]
Invitation
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) Why wait we for the torches’ lights? Now let us drink while day invites. In mighty flagons hither bring The deep-red blood of many a vine, That we may largely quaff, and sing The praises of the god of wine, The son of Jove […]
A Banquet Song
A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC) The rain of Zeus descends, and from high heaven A storm is driven: And on the running water-brooks the cold Lays icy hold; Then up: beat down the winter; make the fire Blaze high and higher; Mix wine as sweet as honey of the […]
Written In A Volume Of The Comtesse De Noailles
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Be my companion under cool arcades That frame some drowsy street and dazzling square Beyond whose flowers and palm-tree promenades White belfries burn in the blue tropic air. Lie near me in dim forests where the croon Of wood-doves sounds and moss-banked water flows, Or musing late till the […]
With A Copy Of Shakespeares Sonnets On Leaving College
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) As one of some fat tillage dispossessed, Weighing the yield of these four faded years, If any ask what fruit seems loveliest, What lasting gold among the garnered ears, — Ah, then I’ll say what hours I had of thine, Therein I reaped Time’s richest revenue, Read in thy […]
Vivien
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Her eyes under their lashes were blue pools Fringed round with lilies; her bright hair unfurled Clothed her as sunshine clothes the summer world. Her robes were gauzes — gold and green and gules, All furry things flocked round her, from her hand Nibbling their foods and fawning at […]
Virginibus Puerisque
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) I care not that one listen if he lives For aught but life’s romance, nor puts above All life’s necessities the need to love, Nor counts his greatest wealth what Beauty gives. But sometime on an afternoon in spring, When dandelions dot the fields with gold, And under rustling […]
Translations Dante Inferno Canto Xxvi
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Florence, rejoice! For thou o’er land and sea So spread’st thy pinions that the fame of thee Hath reached no less into the depths of Hell. So noble were the five I found to dwell Therein — thy sons — whence shame accrues to me And no great praise […]
To England At The Outbreak Of The Balkan War
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) A cloud has lowered that shall not soon pass o’er. The world takes sides: whether for impious aims With Tyranny whose bloody toll enflames A generous people to heroic war; Whether with Freedom, stretched in her own gore, Whose pleading hands and suppliant distress Still offer hearts that thirst […]
Tithonus
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) So when the verdure of his life was shed, With all the grace of ripened manlihead, And on his locks, but now so lovable, Old age like desolating winter fell, Leaving them white and flowerless and forlorn: Then from his bed the Goddess of the Morn Softly withheld, yet […]
The Wanderer
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves, Back of old-storied spires and architraves To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut, And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day Flooded with gold some domed metropolis, Between new towers to waken […]
The Torture Of Cuauhtemoc
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Their strength had fed on this when Death’s white arms Came sleeved in vapors and miasmal dew, Curling across the jungle’s ferny floor, Becking each fevered brain. On bleak divides, Where Sleep grew niggardly for nipping cold That twinged blue lips into a mouthed curse, Not back to Seville […]
The Sultans Palace
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) My spirit only lived to look on Beauty’s face, As only when they clasp the arms seem served aright; As in their flesh inheres the impulse to embrace, To gaze on Loveliness was my soul’s appetite. I have roamed far in search; white road and plunging bow Were […]
The Rendezvous
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour. Distant, across the thundering organ-swell, In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower, Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell. Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves. He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates — Soars . . […]
The Old Lowe House Staten Island
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Another prospect pleased the builder’s eye, And Fashion tenanted (where Fashion wanes) Here in the sorrowful suburban lanes When first these gables rose against the sky. Relic of a romantic taste gone by, This stately monument alone remains, Vacant, with lichened walls and window-panes Blank as the windows of […]
The Nympholept
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) There was a boy — not above childish fears — With steps that faltered now and straining ears, Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still, Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hill Stood sharp and clear in Heaven’s unclouded blue And all Earth shimmered with fresh-beaded dew, Risen in the […]
The Need To Love
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) The need to love that all the stars obey Entered my heart and banished all beside. Bare were the gardens where I used to stray; Faded the flowers that one time satisfied. Before the beauty of the west on fire, The moonlit hills from cloister-casements viewed Cloud-like arose […]
The Hosts
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Purged, with the life they left, of all That makes life paltry and mean and small, In their new dedication charged With something heightened, enriched, enlarged, That lends a light to their lusty brows And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet, These are the men that […]
The Deserted Garden
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) I know a village in a far-off land Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain With tinted walls a space on either hand And fed by many an olive-darkened lane The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain, Winds off to that dim […]
The Bayadere
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon’s rays More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid By the light veils they burned and blushed amid, Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways, And there was invitation in her voice And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes, As though […]
The Aisne
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) We first saw fire on the tragic slopes Where the flood-tide of France’s early gain, Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes, Broke in a surf of blood along the Aisne. The charge her heroes left us, we assumed, What, dying, they reconquered, we preserved, In the chill […]
Tezcotzinco
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold, Thou wert sometime the garden of a king. The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing. The flowers are few. It was not so of old. It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled Through arbors perfumed […]
Sonnet Xvi Who Shall Invoke Her
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest, With single rites the common debt to pay? On some green headland fronting to the East Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day. Naked, uplifting in a laden tray New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine, Not without […]
Sonnet Xv
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Above the ruin of God’s holy place, Where man-forsaken lay the bleeding rood, Whose hands, when men had craved substantial food, Gave not, nor folded when they cried, Embrace, I saw exalted in the latter days Her whom west winds with natal foam bedewed, Wafted toward Cyprus, lily-breasted, nude, […]
Sonnet Xiv
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) IT may be for the world of weeds and tares And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty’s rose That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows One from the train of Love’s true courtiers Straightway on him who gazes, unawares, Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows, Reft by […]
Sonnet Xiii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) I fancied, while you stood conversing there, Superb, in every attitude a queen, Her ermine thus Boadicea bare, So moved amid the multitude Faustine. My life, whose whole religion Beauty is, Be charged with sin if ever before yours A lesser feeling crossed my mind than his Who owning […]
Sonnet Xii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Like as a dryad, from her native bole Coming at dusk, when the dim stars emerge, To a slow river at whose silent verge Tall poplars tremble and deep grasses roll, Come thou no less and, kneeling in a shoal Of the freaked flag and meadow buttercup, Bend till […]
Sonnet Xi
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) When among creatures fair of countenance Love comes enformed in such proud character, So far as other beauty yields to her, So far the breast with fiercer longing pants; I bless the spot, and hour, and circumstance, That wed desire to a thing so high, And say, Glad soul, […]
Sonnet X
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) A splendor, flamelike, born to be pursued, With palms extent for amorous charity And eyes incensed with love for all they see, A wonder more to be adored than wooed, On whom the grace of conscious womanhood Adorning every little thing she does Sits like enchantment, making glorious A […]
Sonnet Viii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Oft as by chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, Nor all […]
Sonnet Vii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) To me, a pilgrim on that journey bound Whose stations Beauty’s bright examples are, As of a silken city famed afar Over the sands for wealth and holy ground, Came the report of one — a woman crowned With all perfection, blemishless and high, As the full moon amid […]
Sonnet Vi
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Give me the treble of thy horns and hoofs, The ponderous undertones of ‘bus and tram, A garret and a glimpse across the roofs Of clouds blown eastward over Notre Dame, The glad-eyed streets and radiant gatherings Where I drank deep the bliss of being young, The strife and […]
Sonnet V
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) A tide of beauty with returning May Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay. Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe; The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound; And through the streets, like veins when […]
Sonnet Ix
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Amid the florid multitude her face Was like the full moon seen behind the lace Of orchard boughs where clouded blossoms part When Spring shines in the world and in the heart. As the full-moon-beams to the ferny floor Of summer woods through flower and foliage pour, So to […]
Sonnet Iv
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Up at his attic sill the South wind came And days of sun and storm but never peace. Along the town’s tumultuous arteries He heard the heart-throbs of a sentient frame: Each night the whistles in the bay, the same Whirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars: For smoke […]
Sonnet Iii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) There was a youth around whose early way White angels hung in converse and sweet choir, Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, — In cloud and far horizon to desire. His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream Born of clear showers and the mountain dew, […]
Sonnet Ii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways, Between the rivers and the illumined sky Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high Fierce lustres mingled in a fiery haze. They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare Beyond the hilltops […]
Sonnet I
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Down the strait vistas where a city street Fades in pale dust and vaporous distances, Stained with far fumes the light grows less and less And the sky reddens round the day’s retreat. Now out of orient chambers, cool and sweet, Like Nature’s pure lustration, Dusk comes down. Now […]